See All Ends
by JasperK
Summary: The girls are following Vash again! This time with a camera to capture the events. Only, Vash is proving as slippery as usual, much to their frustration. But why is he avoiding them? A tale set after the events in the Trigun Manga. Warning: Spoilers for both Anime and Manga.
1. Chapter 1

Spoilers: Yes - all Trigun Manga & Anime. This tale opens where the Vol 14 of the Manga ends.

A/N: This tale is a mixture of both Manga and Anime, but it mostly follows the Manga time line.

* * *

 **See All Ends**

* * *

 _ **Prologue**_

 _Sir, you requested_ _Meryl Stryfe's last report submitted to the reconstituted Bernadelli Insurance Agency, on formally resigning her position. Please see attached:_

We called our world called No Man's Land. It was a good description. If you did not know how to live dodging bullets, you would die in the crossfire. The Terrans, who came after us, called it Gunsmoke for the same reason. Those Terrans, who came from the stars, from our ancient home world of Earth, were at once our salvation and our damnation. They saved us from the threat that Knives was, but sent our best into hiding. That dark knight of sorrow, whose cry was love and peace, gained another bounty on his head. Only they did it without the gall to call it such, they sent out what amounted to a requisition poster (as if he were a material asset).

I do not understand this attitude, as they have independent plants among their crews; in fact, I met one of them, Chronica, whom the former assassin Livio shot down. No Man's Land has a place for plants, as peculiar and destructive as they are, but it seems the Terran's dislike this unpredictable nature.

That aside, the Terrans put out a demand that Vash the Stampede appear before them to speak with them. However, it was clear to the mercenary bounty hunters who followed the Earth Federation Peace Force assigned to this that if they did not give the Terrans the jump, there would be no bounty to be had.

Vash the Stampede, I am in a good position to know, is at once a complete idiot, and dangerously smart. He knew the game before they knew it themselves. When they finally called him out of hiding, he declared himself to stop the Terrans destroying those who had sheltered him. Please see attached appendices of the claims by the Mesa Probe Church, and those who claim recompense against the Terrans and the mercenaries who fought in that region. I submit the first recording we made that day for further evidence of the existence of the Humanoid Typhoon. The slippery man that he is, we lost him. As a result, we have only half an hour's footage on what was supposed to be a 24 hour show, but it will serve you well enough to show the differences in his appearance to our old wanted posters.

He is the same height and build, tall and skinny, and has the same blue-green eyes and disarming smile. But his hair is black, and this is an important note with regards to plants. When the bulb enclosed plants reach the end of their efficiency, there is the (now morally questionable) practice of putting them through the 'last run' to extract the last of the power from them. After this they are decommissioned, which is to say, they die. According to what we have discovered from our own research and new knowledge from the Terrans, an independent plant whose blond hair has turned black is facing their 'last run'. No one knows how long this takes, though should the plant in question wish to extend their life, they would be advised not to use their powers.

As I resign my post at Bernadelli, and take up the position as special investigative reporter for No Man's Land Broadcasting, (with my partner Milly Thompson as my camera jockey) I have this to note. We should be careful of how we treat Vash the Stampede, as he has repeatedly saved us without thought of reward. When time comes for the reckoning of his life, I would not want to count as one who stood against him.

Yours in service,

Meryl Stryfe

Disaster Investigator,

Bernadelli Insurance.

 _As for the extra documentation you requested, we have supplied all we could. While recovery of information on many other major criminals or bounty heads was possible, much of the material regarding Vash the Stampede has vanished. Your implication is quite strong that Ms Stryfe must be regarded as an accomplice, as must her partner Ms Thompson. However, I have only had diligent service and honest reporting from them. Ms Stryfe in particular is meticulous in her work and would see it as a violation of honour to destroy or otherwise remove the reports she so diligently compiled. I can only say that No Man's Land Broadcasting is fortunate to have such hard workers on their team. Perhaps it would be in your interest to contact them, and to procure an interview with these young women yourself._

 _I am sorry we could not assist you further in this case._

 _Regards,_

 _S.L. Bernadelli Jnr._

 _CEO Bernadelli Insurance_

 _Main Office,_

 _December City_

* * *

 _ **Chapter 1**_

Meryl tucked her white cape around her, the microphones lodged where her derringers had been were now oddly discomforting. The weight of the guns she put up with without a second thought, they were survival on this world. However, she and Milly were special investigators, head hunted by the board at No Man's Land Broadcasting. She had jumped at the job, as the newly reconstituted Bernadelli Insurance had called them off the Vash the Stampede assignment, and this had allowed them right back on it, though in a different capacity. Milly had followed with her resignation at Bernadelli a few weeks later. The woman was smarter and more creative than she was, having taken a crash course in filming before requesting an assignment as her assistant. NLBC did not miss the grades she had achieved and the raw talent she exhibited, but Meryl suspected that previous experience with their subject that got her the job.

She felt her heart sink to her boots as she stood with Milly who was happily filming a groaning pile of No Man's Land mercenaries and Terrans. Vash, who had provided them with a thrilling half hours chase into the desert, had somehow vanished. She knew better than anyone that if he truly wanted to lose them they would not find him. What was worse, all she had on film was Vash making a fool of himself. He was supposed to be the great hero, yet he acquired the most horrible stage fright when faced with a camera. He had scuttled off inelegantly; dodging bullets from the cross fire of the Terrans and mercenaries as if they were not there, and wailing for them to please leave him alone. His pathetic wailing really grated; it had drowned out the speech she was supposed to have said right after his. She had practiced it for weeks, but being no actor, still had to read it off script instead of repeating it verbatim.

"It's a wrap for today, Milly." She said tiredly to her partner. Milly lowered the camera.

"Wasn't Mister Vash amusing?"

Meryl's mouth twitched, amusing was the last word she would have used. That man, he had the astounding ability to rub her up the wrong way.

"Yes." She said through her teeth, the sarcasm dripping. "Amusing."

She pulled out her pocket map and inspected it. They were perhaps an ile to an ile and a half from Mesa Probe Church, that put the next town of Bristol three iles away. NLBC, however was a step up from Bernadelli, they paid enough for her to be able to save a good chunk of her salary, and they provided a van. Milly chatted about the gun battle and how pleased she was at how well the Terrans and the locals were getting along. Meryl glanced back, they had run out of ammunition, but that did not stop the brawls and wrestling. They reached their van three quarters of an hour later after crossing the trail of blood, spent bullet shells and discarded weapons that indicated the direction Vash had scarpered. She had picked up a derringer lying discarded on the ground. She pocketed the small gun, amused at how comforted she felt by its presence.

The van was a gunmetal grey armor plated vehicle and cool inside. Milly went to the back where the editing computers were and set about editing the days shoot so they could send NLBC the rushes for the day, as well as the entire unedited footage. They had planned to run it live twenty four hours, but who wanted to watch hours upon hours of desert pass as they searched for their elusive prey. Meryl started up the van and Milly came through and fixed the camera to the clamp in the centre of the cab so that it filmed through the front windscreen.

"So that we can continue filming." She smiled and went back to her editing.

Iles and iles of desert it was. Meryl pitied anyone stupid enough to want to watch it.

They reached Bristol town two hours later. She had taken the roundabout route in the desert - the van doing valiantly with its four-wheel drive- to avoid attracting the Terrans and the mercenaries. She parked it at the first boarding house she found, and left Milly editing while she paid for their lodging for the night. She then staked out Vash's usual haunts. He was not in the saloon, nor playing with the children in the town square, nor in the doughnut shop. They smelled so good; she helped herself to two as a treat, and packaged another two for her partner. That was what hanging around Vash the Stampede did; one gradually came to like what he did out of his sheer enthusiasm. She had always enjoyed the odd doughnut as a treat, but he wolfed them down. She reluctantly passed the small café, as it did not seem to be selling any ice cream, and went back to the boarding house.

If Vash were in town, he would show up eventually as he was incapable of leading a quiet life. She walked up the stairs to their shared room on the second floor and faltered in her steps, as the man himself stepped out from his room. He was now clad in what he clearly thought was a disguise, if his spiky hairstyle did not give him away, a regular grey coat over a linen shirt and dark grey slacks. He blinked at her, but that was all the surprise he showed, then his face split into a grin.

"It's the short broadcast girl!" He declared, exuding enthusiasm.

Oh, so that was the game was it? Not using her name again. She could count on one hand how many times he had said her name. He swanned over and deftly relieved her of the box of doughnuts she carried. "Oh, they make them pretty in this town!" He spoke around munching mouthfuls and got out an equally muffled. "Thank you."

It would not be worth the bother telling him that they had not been for him.

"See you!" He lifted his hand in a wave and sauntered off down the stairs licking colourful sprinkles off his fingers.

She walked up to her room and rolled her eyes. She and Milly shared number eleven, to his thirteen. Right next door, what luck was that, or in his case, bad luck? She could still smell the waft of an intriguing scent that had lingered after he had gone. It threw her directly back into the old days of chasing him around the Outer. She had tried to discover what the scent was, but none of the gentleman's shops in the city had anything to match it. She leaned her forehead against the door. He was her job, and could be nothing more. She had watched the footage of the Terran's arrival and the defeat of Knives, almost daily for the last six months. It had been a spectacular event, but eclipsed by the three seconds of seeing Vash in his strange angel form before ensuing explosions hid him with their clouds of debris. That was the other Vash. The Vash the bounty hunters were after, not the smiling Vash who stole Milly's doughnuts. She pushed the thought away and opened the door.

Her bed was against the left wall of the room, and her pink travel bag was jammed under it. She was so used to having to pack up in a hurry with Vash around that she did not bother to unpack. She pulled out the bag and extracted the typewriter. She had thought that leaving Bernadelli would have eliminated report writing, which she loathed. Thus she had been horrified when NLBC had requested a detailed report, with dialogue, about the day's events. She set the typewriter down on the vanity table and wound in a new page. She caught sight of her disgruntled expression in the mirror and glared at herself. In fact, it was worse. Written reports were required every day, rather than at the end of an assignment, perhaps this was why they had given her a pay raise.

* * *

The television screen at the far end of the ships galley had captured an unusual number of watchers. This was not because of the quality of the programming – the Gunsmoke Natives were awful, preferring sentimentality, sensationalism and crude comedy. Usually the screens within the ship showed reruns of various shows from Earth. However, like today, there were exceptions. There was a new show detailing the antics of Vash the Stampede, and more and more frequently, the local evening news reports, usually for the same reason. Chronica found herself mildly diverted by the frenetic chase and chaotic gun battle. It was standard fare on this world. But what pinned her there, watching to the very end was the actual appearance of Vash the Stampede. It was him. There was no mistake. Mesa Probe Church. Ah, so that was where Vash was… She waited with baited breath, watching everything closely. But the show ended frustratingly with him running off into the desert. Chronica watched the edited chase scene replay the programmers put on and discussed, without hearing them. Where the hell was Knives? She was determined to catch Knives, and keeping an eye on Vash might just give her the lead she needed.

"Ah! Here you are Chronica!"

She felt a slight shock at how absorbed she had been in her own thoughts. She glanced down at the friendly if slightly harassed face of Panse. He was trying to keep all his crew pacified, allowing them to adjust to the idea that they were stuck on this world. He had already had to force several people to cool off their frustrations in the brig. She had accepted that they were trapped on Gunsmoke the day that her ship had been shot down.

"There is a request for you to be down at Domina's containment unit. Is your communicator not working again?"

She gave an irritated click of her tongue and dug the thing out of her pocket. Sure enough the battery was dead. Third time this week, she had to get a replacement. She sighed. Since they were not returning to earth, any supplies the ship had were at a premium. She would just have to dig into her savings.

"I'll meet Kelvogh there now. I just have to arrange a few things before it's too late to have them taken to the Steamer."

"You headed out again?"

"Yes. December this time. They want an independent plant's expertise installing the power plants there. The Kantankle Institute offered me enough money to make it worth my while."

Panse raised an eyebrow. Everyone knew the people of Gunsmoke had very little hard cash.

"They paid my steamer fair, board and lodging. I booked a guide to take me around town. Free travel is not to be sneezed at."

Panse nodded, understanding her need to find fresh air, even if it was desiccated baked air of Gunsmoke.

"Glad you are keeping busy." He said with a sorrowful look, understanding she is still mourning Domina.

She went down to the containment unit. An elderly man, Dr Kelvogh, sat beside the capsule, watching the readout data with an exhausted eye. He looked up and smiled as she entered.

"There is a slight response." He said as he stood.

Chronica felt her heart lift and hurried over. They had been scouring the medical research of No Man's Land, and had found a particular enhancer used by many in the underworld to augment their abilities. Like morphine it had its negative qualities, but judiciously used for medical purposes – perhaps it would bring about the cure they sought. But when she saw the readouts she felt her heart sink worse than it had been. All the improvement she saw was a raised core temperature and heart rate. The brain signals, and more importantly a pulse of gate activity that was usual in a sleeping plant was utterly absent. It had been several months, and still Domina lay there in a coma. She clenched her hand into a fist of fury. Millions Knives would pay for this. She smiled, so as not to disappoint Kelvogh. He nodded and went back to his work. At least she had someone as dedicated as he to look after her. Being in her presence merely exhausted and frustrated Chronica. There was nothing she could _do_. She hated the helplessness. She left the containment unit, relieved she had taken on the job. It would distract her.

* * *

Vash lay back on his bed and let out a frustrated huff. He had reentered the boarding house only when the girls had extinguished the light in their room. He had forgotten how lively those insurance girls were. No, they were not insurance girls now, more like broadcast girls. What was up with that? Something had happened; he could not quite see the short one as having given up her derringers for that. He scrubbed his hand through his hair, he was going to have to find a way to ditch them and fast. He had not minded them that much when they worked for Bernadelli, actually a twist in his gut reminded him, he had. He had also really struggled to give them the slip when they were after him. He would have to watch the big one she was prone to putting tracking devices on him. Why did they always find him before something big went down?

"Vash?" The door creaked open and a slash of light lanced across the room from the outside hall. He considered the distance to the nearest window, or the option of hiding under the bed. He had shut the shutters over the window so the temptation would not be to film him through there. Under the bed was a tight fit, but a sacrifice of pride was in order, he rolled himself to the edge of his bed when he smelled it. Fresh doughnuts. Well damn, somehow, just the smell dissolved his dark thoughts, and he let out a breath of pleasure. The doughnuts were accompanied by two glasses and a rather fine bottle of whiskey. These preceded Meryl as she put her head around the door.

"Are you asleep?"

And miss free doughnuts and whiskey, not a chance.

"Naw." He smiled and lay back on his bed.

She elbowed the light switch and closed the door behind her with her foot.

Interesting, she did not wear her cape; in fact, she wore a long belted blouse and leggings. He watched the way her clothing fell suspiciously; perhaps she did have a microphone concealed there. He would have to watch what he said.

She hooked the chair by the table in the room with her foot and managed to drag it across to beside his bed. He scooted over so she could put her peace offerings beside him. He filched a doughnut while she poured the whiskey. Oh, and they were fresh!

He enjoyed the doughnuts and several shots of whiskey. Meryl was taking her time to come to the point of the conversation and he was more than happy to let her ramble on about the old times. It gave him time to think of an escape plan. He scratched his usual method, running away, as that was going to leave many doughnuts and half a bottle of whiskey behind. He tried to think, ah yes, the short one had always glared at him whenever he had tried to proposition a pretty lady. Hah, that might work to get rid of her.

He waited for an appropriate break in her conversation and turned his well-practiced smile on her.

"So what is the reason you slipped into my room?" He asked in his most charmingly smooth voice.

It had what he thought was a good effect. Her mouth dropped open, her face paled and she stared at him. Now to push the effect home. He sat up smoothly, and leaned over to put his arm around her shoulders. Ow. Ow, ow… He suddenly remembered the reason he had not sat up when she had entered. Over eager romancing forgotten, he clutched at his stomach.

"Vash?" She leaned over him with real concern now.

"Never mind." He tried to smile; he did not want her concerned for him. He wanted her gone. Away from him. Safe.

"You're bleeding!" She gasped and placed the whiskey bottle and her glass on the floor.

He was? He peered down at the blood seeping into his sleep shirt, oh man.

"I have some bandages." She scurried out of the room.

He gingerly lifted his shirt and checked the wound he had bandaged earlier. It was just seeping. She must have had her first aid kit beside her door as she was back in less than five seconds after leaving.

"Get your shirt off." She told him.

"What?"

She gave him a strange look then, something a mixture of sympathy and annoyance.

"I know what you look like, and you can't sleep in a bloody shirt." She lectured.

He so could! He double-checked that the door and windows were both shut. This he refused to allow just anyone to see. That camera was a righteous pain in the arse.

She put a small hand on his side beside the wound and frowned at it. He was astonished at how suddenly all he was aware of were the small fingers exploring his flesh. Perhaps letting her change his bandage was not a bad idea. He pushed himself up into a sitting position and removed his shirt. He heard her small intake of breath as he did so and grimaced in the folds before he pulled it off his head. So much for knowing what he looked like.

She draped his shirt over the back of her chair and he clenched his teeth as she set about removing the old bandage, cleaning the wound and putting fresh bandages in its place.

"Is that the only place you're hurt?" She asked.

He suddenly found he wanted to invent injuries. However, that was no way to get rid of her. She must have seen the quandary on his face as she half stood and ran her fingers through his hair. Wow that felt good. His smile froze on his face as she sat down beside him on the bed.

No, this was not good. A quick escape was needed.

He flopped back down on his back, clenching his teeth at the sharp stab of abdominal pain reminding him not to make such sudden movements.

"Thanks for that!" He exclaimed with a broad smile. "I'll be able to sleep well now!"

"We still have some whiskey and doughnuts." She reminded him.

He relaxed. Whiskey and doughnuts he could handle.

"Wonderful!" He said brightly.

He woke groggily the next morning to someone shuffling outside his door. He tensed to dive under his bed when his movement shifted a warm presence beside him. He felt his stomach drop as he discovered Meryl stretched out alongside him, her face pressed against his ribs. When had this happened? He racked his brains. She was still in her clothes and he still had his trousers on, so nothing had gone down, but she was in his bed and this was really not a good thing. She shifted and pressed a hand against his side. What was it with her touch? It sent his thoughts out of his head, darts of pleasure skittering over his skin and pooled warmth in other areas.

In that distracted moment the door was pushed open and the big girl walked in with the camera on her shoulder. He gaped at her in horror.

"Morning, Mr Vash!" She called with a broad smile. "Morning Meryl!"

Meryl gave an inarticulate cry, launched herself from the bed beside him and flew at Milly. The taller woman stumbled back in surprise.

"Meryl?" She breathed, hurt.

"Get that camera off!" The shorter woman pulled the huge television camera down and with a practiced movement, snapped the side of it open and ripped a panel out of it. She threw the offending piece of equipment across the room.

"But Meryl!" Milly gaped at the wrecked memory pack.

Meryl turned back to her partner.

"Get out."

Milly looked crestfallen and trooped out.

Meryl shut the door after her and leaned against it breathing hard.

Vash lay back, unable to help the expansive grin on his face. Perhaps this was going to work out so much better than he had expected.

* * *

Meryl returned to Milly's room after gingerly retrieving the memory pack and a saying a hushed sorry to Vash. He had given her a civil nod, for which she was relieved, as his earlier smile had had a touch of vindictiveness. She knew he wasn't a vindictive person, so that had been a warning, but from what? She felt chastened, it only went to show that she thought she knew him, but he kept vast areas of his life and personality hidden.

Milly was installing a new memory pack into the camera as she went in.

"I'm sorry, Miss Meryl, I didn't realize you did not want to be in the shot!" Milly stumbled over herself to apologize.

Meryl had an odd smile on her face; it stuck there without her being able to get rid of it. She must have slept most of the night with her face against his side, and now all she could smell in her nostrils was that wonderful scent. However, now that she tried to think she realized that adrenalin and panic had overridden her awareness of last night's copious consumption of whiskey. She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose to try to dim the headache.

"Milly, it was our brief to film him twenty four hours a day. You were right in coming in so early, sorry I reacted like I did."

"Was he good to you Meryl?" Milly asked, delicately.

Her eyes sprang open and she stared at her partner for the audacity of the insinuation.

"I changed his bandages and we ate doughnuts and drank far too much whiskey. I do not remember falling asleep next to him. However, I do know nothing happened. Imagine sleeping with him, Milly, I pity the girl!"

"Meryl." Milly said, sadly and gently.

She shot her partner a warning look not to push it further, and then smiled.

"Let me change and we can go and follow him around today. If he has half the hangover I do, it should be amusing."

They entered his room five minutes later and Meryl braced herself for a second encounter with him. She gaped at the bed in mounting dismay. She clenched her fists and ground her teeth, willing herself not to scream in fury. Milly was filming the empty bed, the empty room, and the open window with the curtains catching the breeze. He was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Chapter 2**_

Meryl did not know whether to be frustrated or relieved. The sun was shining brightly through the open window, and all his belongings and Vash himself were gone. She then spotted a note on the bed and walked over to pick it up.

"Thanks for the doughnuts and whiskey." He had included a silly picture of himself showing a peace sign. She stuffed it in her pocket; there was no way she was going to show that on film. Milly was fortunately walking the camera over to the window and did not see her filch the note. They filmed the empty room and the street outside, including the drop down onto the gravel yard from the window.

"Mister Vash is sure lively in the morning." Milly observed as they returned the equipment to their room and went downstairs for breakfast.

"You know him; he's had over a century of practice."

"Mmh." Milly mused. "I wonder if the other plants are as old as he is?"

Meryl blinked at the bright sun in the dining room downstairs and directed Milly to the darkest corner of the room.

"They could be." She mused. "It's really hard to tell a plant's actual age, and I bet many of them would lie to get by in human society."

"I wouldn't." Milly mused to herself. "My big sister always said to always tell the truth. Even if I were a century old plant, they probably would think I was joking."

Meryl sat down with her back to the window and put her head in her hands. She was eternally grateful for whatever had driven Vash to flee; she really needed to go back to bed.

"I was thinking," Milly suggested in her upbeat sing song tone, "that I would walk around town with the camera, so that we could get some footage I can intersperse with all the action. One has to have balance when composing a sequence."

Meryl gave her partner a dazed gaze of adoration, and silently mouthed thank you.

Milly asked to drive when they left town, and Meryl was glad to let her. She had a private date with the editing suite and did not want Milly's interference. She slotted in the dented memory pack and it brought up the seven seconds of film that Milly had captured that morning. She was surprised at the alarmed expression on Vash's face just before she woke up. It was not directed at Milly, it was directed at her. She slotted in her private disc, cut the footage from the memory pack, and placed on her disc. There, now she had it to peruse at her pleasure. Not that she was going to look at much from the third second of filming; from then it was her shocked and furious face. That expression of his bothered her. She pocketed her private disc and went to sit in the passenger seat. Milly was giving a cheerful dialogue to the stretch of desert between towns. She levered her chair back as far as it would go and closed her eyes.

"Isn't that right Meryl?"

She opened her eyes in alarm, and silently mounted 'what?'

Milly mouthed back 'I said, we got a lead on Mister Vash.'

"Oh yes." She said aloud, trying to sound confident.

"Maybe you can tell them about it." Milly suggested.

"Well we scouted the town," Meryl said, taking liberty with the pronoun, as she had been in bed for the initial foray, "and we found a few old ladies sitting in rocking chairs on the veranda, who had seen a gentleman by his description, catch the bus to the next town. By our estimate we are three hours behind the bus."

"That's right!" Milly said happily. "I hope we find him soon, because I am looking forward to a pudding for lunch."

Milly gave a small hand sign to cut talking and Meryl gave her a grateful nod, took a sip of water from her canteen, and then lay back with her eyes closed once more. She tried to recall what had happened the night before. She clearly remembered the events early on, how he had taken off his shirt and she had not been able to stifle a gasp at how, despite the scars, his muscles rippled fluidly across his chest. She felt a smile come to her lips. Meryl! She caught herself; this was _Vash_ she was daydreaming about! He might be interesting, but she refused to think of him like that. So where had she been, yes, what had happened later? She did not feel that she had done anything. A vague memory swam in and out of focus. Vash had fallen asleep before she had, yes, that was it, and she had poked him to see if he was really asleep. It was then she had decided it was an excellent idea to lie down beside him and rest her eyes, no harm done. There was something else to that memory, oh, yes, that had been the reason she had tried to subtly comfort him. He'd curled his prosthetic arm across his chest and had whimpered to himself. She had not needed the movements of his lips, or the expression of a lost child on his face to know what he was saying, she had heard him call out in his sleep before. Rem. She never left his thoughts. She had initially been exceedingly jealous of a woman around whom his life orbited, but on learning what had happened, she allowed him his love. She, more than Vash himself, was the one person to whom they owed their existence.

Milly reached up and turned off the camera, and as an extra precaution pulled out the cable linking it with the computers behind.

"Meryl, do you really think we're going to find him?" She quavered.

"Of course we will." Meryl replied with confidence born not of experience or optimism, but the sure knowledge that with Vash loosed on the world again, disaster would follow in his wake.

* * *

Vash pounded through the streets of Lewiston Town. Some unthinking, unkind person had changed his wanted poster! There was the same picture of him with a charming smile, but it now had black hair. How was he supposed to get by in the world if everyone was chasing him? He dove in at the nearest open window as the bounty hunters after him started firing down the alley. Behind him, a black cat shot up the washing lines yowling.

He stumbled through a family kitchen, they all gaped at him, so startled they did not move as he dove out of the window in their living room and high tailed it up that alley. He found a fire escape, sprinted up it, and collapsed for a breath on the edge of the roof. He surveyed the scene; he was cornered if anyone found him here. He loped across the roof and gauged the distance to the next building, he could jump it, and hope the building also had a fire escape. A sudden explosion shook the air, knocking him back against the roof. He scrambled to his feet and scrabbled over to the south edge of the roof. Just further down the street, where the Town Hall had been seconds ago, a plume of dust and ash rose into the air. He was on the other side of the street! What were those insane bounty hunters doing? He took a running leap over to the next building, and finding no fire escape, or even a pole down the wall to attach a satellite receiver, he had to repeat his leap to the next building, which brought him opposite the fallen town hall.

"There he is!"

Vash felt a flash of adrenaline as his heart sank.

"Why is it always me?" He whined piteously. The fitter bounty hunters had come up the fire escape. He scrambled on all fours, dodging the poorly aimed shots and dove down the very rickety fire escape. It came away from the wall in several places as he thundered down it. He jumped through the rear ground floor window, and then realized what place it was that he had entered. Eight men sat with rifles by their sides, some smoking, some playing cards. All of them with a small numbered badge that said 'ranger', he had hidden in the Sheriff's offices.

"Hello!" He said breezily, and hurried through it before they could match him with the Wanted poster tagged to the wall above their heads. He made it to the front door before shots followed him. He leaped out of the building and stumbled out into the empty patch of street in front of the demolished building.

There was a still silence in the air as he stumbled to a halt in the middle of the street. From behind him the Sheriff's men peered out of the door, and oddly retreated inside once more, the bounty hunters saw him from the roof, but only two shots went off and they retreated, though kept their guns raised. The rest of the bounty hunters were coming up the alleys around the sheriff's office. There was a reason why this section of street was empty. He stumbled out into a Mexican standoff between two opposing groups. Their clothing stated they were people of No Man's Land, and their weaponry and stance said thugs. They looked to be rival gangs in the area as each had solidarity markings on their clothes.

"Ah?" He grinned innocently and raised his hands and managed a step of retreat when shots fired down after him. "Gotta go!" He called as his voice jumped a pitch, and sprinted to the left, where there was a gap between the buildings and the people. The bounty hunters flowed after him. After a brief scuffle with the gangs someone yelled.

"That man in the red coat is Vash the Stampede!"

One of those bounty hunters must have squealed. It was not his day. He darted into the nearest open doors and straight into the arms of several burly thugs.

"Oi." One growled and pushed him back towards the door. It was not every day that he met someone taller than he was. "You're not one of us." By the triangular logo on his shirt, he belonged to the faction he had dodged past. Wonderful, so this was their den. His luck had certainly deserted him since that Earth Federation Peace Force had showed up.

"Ah, just leaving!" He laughed tentatively with a bright smile and waved his hand casually at the door, then spun around and staggered into a crowd of gun barrels.

"We've caught him!" Shots followed the bounty hunters cry.

He dropped, and was not entirely surprised to see the thugs do the same, they moved like trained soldiers.

"Scary!" He bleated as his heart hammered and his eyes widened, "I'll leave this way!" Vash turned from the door and darted past the heavies at the door, who moved too agilely for his liking. Someone grabbed the long tails of his red duster and he stumbled, throwing the movement into a crouch as his sweep kick connecting with the jaw of the thug who held him. He sprinted for the questionable safety of the rooms deeper in the mansion

He leaned against the wall in a dark corner, and watched the bounty hunters arguing with the thugs at the door. Eventually a stocky man with a thick leather jerkin marched up the stairs from the outside.

"This is our property." He said quietly to the bounty hunters, with a powerful menace in his tone.

There was a brief negotiation of rights to a hunted man and the owners of the house seemed to win it. The bounty hunters retreated, dragging their wounded.

"Where is the idiot that ran in here?" The stocky man demanded.

Ah, that was his cue to make himself scarce.

"Vash the Stampede?" The stocky man roared with laughter. "But he's dead!"

Excellent deduction, sir, Vash silently congratulated him. Time to make himself really scarce!

He stepped into the first room he came to and there was a rapid clicking of safety catches a he discovered four gun barrels held to his head. He froze and raised his hands.

The room held a large safe, and there were more thugs with the same triangular logo on their shirts, loading bails of money into sacks. There was something odd about the people, ah, that is what it was, and most of them sported some military augmented bionic part to their bodies. He had not seen its like before and that bothered him somewhat. It was after he had noticed the peculiarity that the real incongruity struck him. They were not emptying the safe rather they were filling it.

"Ah, so here he is."

Vash tried to peer sideways as the stocky man entered the room behind him.

"The man, no, the plant with $$60 billion on his head." He turned to the thugs that held him captive. "Keep him alive and treat him with care." He smiled at cat like grin. "Welcome to the Gavry Brigade, Vash the Stampede. I am Colonel Ethan Gavry. You'll live a short while yet, until then, you are our guest of honor."

* * *

While not feeling particularly well, Meryl was definitely up to doing some work. Smoke rose above the town and they glanced at each other. Milly floored the accelerator and Meryl remembered instantly why she did not like Milly to drive. The girl could take a corner on two wheels, but there might not be anything left of the vehicle afterwards. She clung on for dear life, very grateful that they had decided to turn the camera on before they reached the town, as this would be excellent footage; however that meant the camera was on, she could not allow the terrified scream building in her throat to escape. For the second time that day, she resented the ever-present potential thousands of viewers who would be seeing this. She had not volunteered to live her life in front of the whole world. That was supposed to be Vash's job. How had this become so confused?

Milly tore into town and had to slam on the breaks, the rear of the van switch backed a few times before coming to squealing halt in front of the solid knot of men bristling with weapons. The stench of burned rubber tires filled the van. She released her iron grip on the seat and flexed her hands to get the blood circulating once more. They were in front of what perhaps had been the town hall, as the bank, and sheriff's office were opposite it. Unusually, the demolished town hall did not seem to be causing much consternation, the focus of the attention was a raid on the bank. It seemed three warring factions were all trying to get inside.

Milly shot her a delighted grin and Meryl slipped out of the truck and loped over to the nearest group of people. She activated the microphones, but did not show it, people spoke more frankly without them.

"What happened here?" She asked.

Two men at the back of the crowd stared at her.

"This ain't no place for wimmen."

"Unless they're entertaining." The other man leered.

Ah yes, that was what counted as frank as soon as one stepped away from the city.

Meryl selected a microphone, held it out and spoke her shortest catch phrase.

"NLBC live, this is Meryl Stryfe, what is happening?"

The men gawked at the microphone as if it was a live snake, but others noticed her.

"Hey it's the girl from that show. The one about Vash the Stampede. He went in there!"

Several people pointed at the bank.

Really Vash, what had happened? Meryl stepped forward.

"That's just crap the Gavry gang and those lousy bounty hunters came up with!" Another man protested. "They blew up our headquarters."

"The Town Hall?" Meryl asked, skeptically, she could see the splintered board with the writing on it among the rubble.

"Yes, we're the committee in charge of this town."

The committee was apparently a group of menacing thugs with a miscellany of weapons.

"And so the riot outside the bank would be?"

"That's the Gavry headquarters."

"I tell you I saw a man in a red duster run in there." The first man was arguing with his detractor and shaking a piece of paper in his face with one hand and a semi-automatic rifle with the other. "He's the same on the poster, look!"

The poster was shoved right in front of his eyes. Sixty billion double dollars, so the price on his head was back, after so long. In addition, they had updated the picture. Meryl scowled, the only time Vash pulled that expression was in front of the ladies. He was such an easily lead fool at times.

"Excuse me." Milly said politely as she tracked her way through the crowd. The startled thugs let her past and she focused the camera on the poster. Both men forgot their argument in front of the camera. Several people in the group rapidly made themselves scarce on the far side of the truck. Meryl knew how they felt, there were some things you just did not need recorded for posterity.

"So Mister Vash is robbing the bank?" Milly's innocent question filtered over to her.

Meryl barged across to her partner before this could become catastrophic.

"Well, maybe?" The man she was interviewing scratched at his ear, forgetting his knife in his hand. "Ow." He clenched his teeth resolutely determined to ignore the blood running down the side of his head while on camera and went on. "Good on him if he does. Them Gavry well need a lesson after this!" He stabbed out with the knife towards the town hall, making those around him dart out the way. The man behind him confiscated the knife in a brief scuffle, and cussed him out, all of which Milly filmed. Meryl gritted her teeth at ignorant people. This show was about Vash, where was he when they needed him?

"Come on Milly." She muttered and pushed her way through the press of bodies. She discovered why there was such a press when she forced an elbow through a particularly tight knot and came stumbling out into open air. Milly followed, talking her way through. There were two sides facing off at each other with guns, and now she had dragged Milly into it.

"It's the Stampede girls!" A thick bearded man pointed them out. "It must be him."

The Stampede girls? Meryl opened her mouth, furiously to correct them, but the standoff dissolved and everyone swarmed around the bank. Some spilling into the side alleys and breaking windows on the ground floor to get in. There were several seconds of chaos and they were left alone in the street with a few trampled souls unable to get up and the thunderous sounds of an all out battle going on inside the bank.

"That bounty." She muttered to herself, furious. "Don't the feds know it causes more trouble than it's worth?"

"Sorry, I didn't catch that Meryl."

"You weren't meant to." She said suddenly sweetening her tone; Milly had the live button glowing. Oh goodness, this was going to go down the toilet from here.

"Agh!" She muttered darkly to herself. "Milly, film the action, I'm getting the Sheriff."

"Yes Meryl!" Milly said enthusiastically and joined the back of the crowd trying to get into the bank.

* * *

Vash sat in the cell in the Sheriff's office where the Colonel had marched him. He pretended to be asleep for two reasons, the first was that the Sheriff's secretary kept shooting him anxious looks as if he were a live bomb he had just found, and the second was that he had noticed a man crouched up in the rafters. The man seemed content to wait in the dark roof space, but Vash did not want to antagonize him by allowing him to know that he had seen him.

By the sound of it, the battle had just intensified in the bank next door. A moment later the door slammed open and the round-shouldered Sheriff marched in followed by his deputy who wore a shapeless brown duster. Vash opened his eyes slightly as he realized that the deputy held the Sheriff at gunpoint. The deputy marched the man to the cell bars.

"Turn around and face me if you can call yourself a man!" The deputy snarled at him.

The Sheriff flinched and turned, his hands raised. The deputy reached over and snatched the badge away from his chest, tearing the waistcoat. He threw it away and it bounced through the cell bars. The deputy noticed Vash sitting there and gave a very bleak grin.

"Let him out, Amos." He ordered.

"What?" The secretary choked. "Theodore, do you know who he is?"

"Yes. I also know that the Colonel wants him, and we are going to deny him that pleasure. Let him out."

Amos approached the cell with shaking hands. He fumbled the key several times before the lock clicked. He scuttled back to stand beside the door as Vash stood up.

"Get out of here." Theodore jerked his chin towards the door, as Vash approached him.

"Don't shoot him."

All three men stared at him. Vash wondered what his face must look like when he said those words as most people returned incredulity as a response.

"I said get out." Theodore growled gruffly.

"I can't let you shoot this man."

"Have you any idea what he has done?" Theodore roared at him.

Vash stumbled back, winded, as the shotgun butt caught him in the solar plexus.

"Tie him up." The man demanded.

The terrified secretary complied, though Vash wondered if he knew slip knots were supposed to be tied the other way, as they were he could simply flex his arms and loosen the rope. He slouched in the sheriff's chair, trying to breathe through the pain. Ow. He could feel moisture; damn this had opened his wound again. Then again, he had succeeded in not being evicted from the room. He put his feet on the table; it helped keep the wound from stretching too much. The secretary retreated to the door again.

"How could you allow scum like that in our town?" The deputy roared at the Sheriff. He forgot Vash as soon as he neutralized him.

"I didn't know Theodore!" The Sheriff's voice shook in terror. "It got me out of debt; you know I was in a tight place with the Milian gang."

"But they butchered all those people! How could you?"

It was then that Vash saw the door crack open and at the same time the man on the rafter overhead shifted and slipped his gun from his holster. He could kick the man off the beam, but the terrified secretary hid the door. Ah. He did not let his smile show on his face as that would give the game away. It was Meryl at the door, he did not know how she had guessed to sneak up here, but that gave him the odds he needed.

"I'm telling you!" The round-shouldered Sheriff almost cried. "I knew nothing of the body trafficking! It was just about the money!"

"They took my wife, Max!" Theodore breathed a low steady growl. "And you have the gall to give me the excuse that you didn't know! You're gonna have to do a lot better than that if you want to live!" The deputy turned to Vash. "And you don't want me to kill him?" He asked incredulously.

"There has to be some other way!" Vash insisted, upset. Why did people bring such suffering on themselves? Did they not know that adding another death would only haunt them further?

"I don't know why I don't I shoot you for sheer annoyance factor!" The man growled at him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Meryl bite her lip to keep from laughing. He knew that he annoyed her, but what did she find humorous about that situation? He then caught her eye, hers widening with surprise, and he flicked his gaze up at the man on the rafter above him and went back to watching the pair argue.

By her movements, she noticed the man, assessed the situation, and seemed to be cursing softly to herself. When he saw the muzzle of a tiny derringer, it was all he could do not to cheer, so she hadn't entirely lost herself to the broadcasting agency.

He tensed as he heard the man above him cock the revolver he held. Hurry Meryl. He shifted his foot so that the metal line ruler on the desk would send the paperweight in addition to several official papers flying up into the air if he thumped the end with his heel.

Meryl fired the derringer, and then everything happened at once. The man in the rafters dropped his gun, stumbled off the beam and fell on top of the deputy. The deputy's shotgun went off, putting a hole in the space where the Sheriff's head had been a second before. The secretary at the door, spun around and in his haste to get to Meryl, slammed the door then scrabbled to haul it open. Meryl ducked beside the door as he leaped out into the passage and stuck out her foot and he went sprawling into the wall on the opposite side of the passage. She relieved him of his revolver as he slumped on the floor stunned.

Vash slipped his ropes, and stood up, the better to stay out of Meryl's reach.

"What is going on here?" She demanded with that furious feisty expression in her eyes. Dread and delight at seeing her battled it out in his heart. Why did her kindness always come with a stinging haranguing?


	3. Chapter 3

_**Chapter 3**_

Meryl walked into the sheriff's office. Unsurprisingly Vash was free. He shot her a rather nervous congratulatory grin as she entered. The man who had been on the rafter dusted himself off and shot an irritable glance at Meryl, then ignored her. Meryl stared. He was no man; rather it was a lithe woman dressed in men's clothing. At her feet, the two men on the floor lay groaning. Meryl went back to staring at her almost in dread. She knew this woman, and what she represented was a significant amount of trouble for Vash.

"You knew I was there." The woman said, eyeing Vash with a strange expression.

"You were hiding, how could I?" He laughed, diffusing the tension. Meryl clawed her hands as Vash tried to be ingratiating and failed horribly. She wondered just where he had picked up his flirting techniques - the bar rooms of No Man's Land, clearly.

"And she…" The woman gaped at her in astonishment. "Hey, I know you; you're the NLBC anchor, filming him!" She hastily pulled her waistcoat over her head and turned her back to her.

It had been the politest recognition Meryl had had, but very odd.

"I'm here to arrest these men, but I do not want my face known." She said his voice muffled through his clothing. "I am Ann, and have the authority to arrest these men."

She held out a badge, to Vash of all people. Meryl sidled over and peered at it, it was stamped with the words 'Mashal, Federal government.' Vash reached out to take her hand with the badge then hesitated and dropped his hand with a slight sigh.

"I don't have a camera with me; you can go about your business." Meryl told her, then mouthed in her direction. "Marshal Marianne."

The woman flinched and glared furiously, but kept her waistcoat up.

"The Colonel is also in town." Vash added, still making calf eyes, though wistful ones, in her direction. Marianne did not seem to notice, still bristling irritation. She made a movement that might have been a nod.

"We are aware of it. It is for this reason we infiltrated the Milian gang, to bring the Gavry Brigade into the open. However, this Sheriff has been playing a double game. He got into debt with the Milian gang, and asked the Gavry brigade for help." She toed the Sheriff with her boot. "And to top that, he isn't even Maxwell Rush, the real sheriff is dead, isn't that so, Rolfson, you took his papers and his name before he could reach this town."

The man scowled up at the Marshal.

To Meryl's surprise, Vash slipped back into the chair. She noticed he used his arms to lower himself with an apparently easy movement. Was he still hurting from his stomach wound?

"Hey, this chair is really comfortable. Can I be Sheriff?"

Meryl was about to deliver another withering glare when she saw the expression on Marianne's face. She was so incredulous that she had forgotten to hide behind her waistcoat. It was a perfect mirror of what Meryl felt whenever Vash came up with such idiotic ideas. However seeing it on someone else gave her a bad case of the giggles. She pressed her fist to her mouth, her shoulders shaking.

"Aw, you're no fun." Vash whined as he stood. He made it to the door before she grabbed his coat.

"Oh!" He turned to her and handed her two keys, one had a series of numbers written on it in marker pen.

"That's for the jail and that's for the safe, the numbers are the release code."

She took them in surprise and he darted off down the passage.

"Vash!" She yelled after him, his laughter taunted her as it disappeared out of the sheriff's office. Marianne did a quick job of handcuffing the two men. She knew her business, and right now, Meryl realized, hers was escaping. Where were the sheriff's staff? Dead or in hiding, she supposed. How had this become her responsibility? He really made her so angry! Oh, when she caught up to that man, was she going to give it to him good.

She jangled the keys as lively gunfire announced that Vash had probably reached the street. She glanced at the only federal official in the room.

"Hey! Ann, think quick!" She tossed her the keys, and caught sight a flash of gold on the Marshal's left hand as she caught them. Meryl ran. The Sheriff's office was not her business. She made it to the door and sure enough, she heard the gunfire surge away through the streets of the town. She glanced up and down the street, realizing that neither Milly, nor anyone else for that matter, was in sight. The only positive spin she could put on the situation was that the rushes were going to make good viewing tonight; at least she had not seen it firsthand. Oh, but the entire planet was. She wondered how long it would take the Feds to arrive, and if they did she did not want to be in the middle of it, not when everyone attached her and Milly to Vash. She hurried over to the van and drove it more sedately through the streets than Milly had. The bank was half demolished. Paper fluttered everywhere. It was then that she realized that it was double dollar bills. She knew the people of her world; free money was not an opportunity that they would pass up. What had Vash done to attract them away from that? Another explosion echoed to the south, and a plume of rubble dust went up. More gunfire followed it; she turned the van and went after them. She wondered what Bernadelli would have to say about this, the sheer amount of paperwork! She smiled grimly, not her problem.

She had to back up two blocked streets before she reached the scene of the explosion. They had demolished a factory of some kind. Again money floated from the sky, and people were not going after it. She climbed out of the van and snatched a $$50 out of the sky. She fingered it and held it up to the suns. Ah. So that was it, money laundering. She collected as much as would fit into the doughnut box she had in the van, and stashed it away. Old loyalties died hard. She would send it to Bernadelli, but they could take what they got from the footage Milly shot, there was no way she was writing even more reports.

Following the trail of destruction took her towards the edge of town. She was nearly at the outskirts when she realized that that doughnut box had been full, she had been too queasy to eat more than breakfast that day.

"Vash." She growled exasperated.

"Not here." He responded. She almost crashed the car in shock.

She glared back and he waved cheekily from the editor's desk.

"You can't spend that fake money, you know." He told her.

"I'm sending it to Bernadelli." She clamped her hands on the steering wheel and tried to ignore him.

"You do have a tough life!" He exclaimed. "Two jobs and all those reports!"

"Yes, and a certain someone is not making them easy!" She snapped back at him.

"I said I'm not here. No problem."

There was something about the utterly simple way he said that that made her fists itch to pound him.

"Oh, scary face!" He gave her an alarmed stare, and then left the chair grabbed his bag and in a fluid motion leaped from the van. At the last second, he flashed her a cheeky grin.

"Vash!" She screamed after him, but he tumbled a few times and sprang to his feet then hurried off between the buildings, down an alley far too narrow for her to follow.

Muttering very uncomplimentary things under her breath, she drove off after the next explosion. Here she found Milly, surrounded by what seemed to be self-appointed bodyguards, and a keen young man with a large wart on his nose, who was giving commentary. She parked the van down a side street that would make a good escape route.

Milly waved at her as she approached, and the bodyguards allowed her through.

"What happened?" She whispered.

"Well, the Milian gentlemen took control of the town two months ago. But they taxed the people too much, so they called in help, and so the Gavry gentlemen came and provided money, but it's counterfeit money, see? So there was a big fight about it all, and somehow Mister Vash got caught up in it all and the bounty hunters went after him. So there was a huge fight in the bank, and I even got inside, and that was when these kind gentlemen decided to escort me outside, but then the warehouse with the money presses went up and we had to run there, and now the feds have arrived and everyone is fighting them."

Meryl cleared her throat.

"Milly, who are we supposed to be filming?"

"Mister Vash."

"And who are you filming?"

"Oh. Sorry, Meryl."

"Let's go." She sighed.

The thugs followed them a few paces, then oddly, melted away rapidly. The young man with a wart on his nose looked particularly disappointed.

She found the reason in seven men in uniform standing beside the van. The federal officials had their badge of office pinned to their coats.

"Ma'am, we need to search your van." One demanded.

Meryl was astonished at the request, but opened the doors and allowed them into the tiny editing room. Once they had each inspected it, they glared at her.

"Where is he?"

"Who?" Meryl said blankly, but knowing the answer.

"Vash the Stampede."

"The last I saw he was sprinting down an alley." She pointed at the alley, very certain that Vash was at least an ile away in another direction by now.

"Weren't you supposed to be filming him?"

"We're going after him now."

"Right, then we'll ride with you."

Meryl and Milly shared a look, but allowed the officers into the van. Milly reattached the camera to film out of the front window, and then very primly went to sit at the chair by the editor's desk, like a queen on her throne. The men distributed themselves around the van, crouching and holding onto the walls. Meryl did not know quite what to do, so she dutifully drove around town, hunting for Vash, and on their third circuit, she could sense that the federal official beside her was becoming more and more irritated.

"Now you know how we feel, day in, day out, trying and find him." She said, before he could mouth off at her for being obstructive to justice. She drove to the town centre and opened the doors. "There is better work to be done than to chase Vash the Stampede." She pointed at the sheriff's office and explained what waited there.

"We have our eye on you." He said, in a faintly menacing manner.

Meryl congratulated herself on keeping a straight face, and biting down the phrase 'yes, so does the entire world.'

They trooped into the Sheriff's office. She drove away slowly, and circled the town once more, taking in the various explosion sites, and how people were now out and grabbing as much money as they could stuff down their shirts. Ah yes, these were the real people of No Man's Land, hard working and opportunistic to a fault. The feds had rounded up the two warring parties, and several bounty hunters, though it seemed that the bounty hunters had caught on the fastest and had made themselves scarce when the feds had arrived.

She drove out of town, and Milly came to join her in the passenger seat. After they had travelled ten minutes into the desert in silence, Milly reached up and turned the camera off. She unplugged it, then gestured for Meryl to hand her the microphone, surprised she did so. Milly switched it off.

Meryl stared, a slow mounting horror engulfing her. Milly had taken all the pictures, and she all the sound. All live. Oh hell, this was bad.

"Oh Meryl!" Milly exclaimed, voicing her dismay beautifully, "we forgot to buy pudding!"

Vash sat on the roof of the tannery at the very edge of town and smiled as he watched the NLBC van drive out into the desert. Meryl was making assumptions again. He smiled at the tiny screen he held in his hand, she had a lot to learn about investigative journalism, let alone live reporting. Yet, that was in his favor though. He had enjoyed how she handled the feds. He slipped the bottle of left over whiskey from his pocket, unscrewed the cap and toasted it to her. He took a swig then closed the cap again. It was times like these that he really wished Wolfwood were here. It simply was not the same without someone to rile. He stared moodily out at the van retreating into the desert; at least they gave him a direction in which not to head, they were better off not becoming involved.

* * *

Janus City

It was hard to concentrate on driving when going passed in the other direction were a steady line of trucks and small tanks. Milly was enthusiastically filming them, having taken the camera from the cradle in the cab. Meryl worried, as all she saw were the Earth Federation Peace Force insignia on them. The last time they had encountered the Peace Force, they had tried to kill Vash. The last truck went by and there was a sudden silence after the steady thundering roar. She and Milly glanced at each other; she knew what her partner was thinking. Surely, the only thing on this world requiring such an offensive was their target. She slowed the van and turned it, so that Milly could continue to film the convoy, but did not follow. The last thing she wanted was for the Terrans to notice them.

Since the show had aired three weeks ago, it had become harder for her to enter settlements. Milly, who had not made the mistake of being in front of the camera, remained unknown. However, it seemed to Meryl that every stranger in the street knew her face and name. She mulled over this as the crazy Terrans turned off the highway and drove directly out into the desert. Perhaps this was how Vash felt with his name and face plastered over the walls in every town. Everyone knew him, but no one really knew who he was. Amusement made the corners of her mouth twitch, she had been the worst at that, she recalled, to the point of telling him to his face that he was not Vash. Then, even when she had acknowledged him, she had learned not to take him at face value. What one usually saw was the tip of the depths that he was.

She blinked, distracted from her musings, as she realized what it was she was seeing. Had those Terrans utterly taken leave of their senses? They were driving out into the great desert. Surely, they knew that there was a reason that the Outer was called that. It was the outer limit of possible civilization. There in the deep desert there were monsters, true monsters. She shuddered. She had seen the pictures of the sandworms and the remains of caravans that had deviated from the main trail. Assessing those claims had been one of her assignments shortly before the assignment to watch Vash. Why would anyone be willing to venture into the deep desert, there was nothing there! And the caravan had had far heavier fire power than those little tanks had. It seemed that yet again, the Terrans did not take the word of the people who had lived on No Man's Land long enough to know its dangers. She considered this philosophically, then again, perhaps some people needed to learn the hard way. They watched until the Terrans drove out of sight. She turned the truck, completing the circle, and continued the direction they had been heading.

"Are we not going to follow them?" Milly asked.

"No, at least not yet." Meryl replied. "We don't have the supplies to enter the desert. We can find out what is going on when we reach the city."

Milly returned the camera to the cradle, reached over, and turned the sound off. Neither of them were going to make the same mistake as they had done the last time. The NLBC had been scathing in its disapproval of sound that did not match the images. However, the worst they had done was generally condemn the entire presentation. Meryl still winced at the memory of the letter she had received. They had just checked in at the small broadcasting tower in the city two weeks ago, having completely lost Vash's trail. Not even destruction could tell them where he was. It had been a very dull week's worth of filming. She privately reasoned that if he was clever, and she knew he was, that all he had to do was to tune into their channel to discover where they were and simply walk out of town before they arrived.

What she hadn't been expecting was the way that everyone in the broadcast office had stared at her, their eyebrows raised, or on some faces, profound pity. They had then handed her the letter, which by its folds and crumpled appearance, everyone on the staff had read. The letter was not privately mailed; rather it had been relayed and printed like public office notices.

"For the attention of Miss Stryfe, assigned to the 'Chasing the Humanoid Typhoon' program.

Miss Stryfe, allow us to inform you of our profound disappointment in the manner in which you have handled the series. We were given to understand that you were professional and purposeful in your manner and presentation. What we have received from you as quality airworthy material, is worse than the worst of the debut video we receive from hopeful candidates wishing to join our company. As your initial screen tests indicate that you do have the ability to report on camera, we will give you one final chance to redeem yourself.

Also be aware that the program is about Vash the Stampede, and not, as you have for the past weeks presented us with, iles and iles of desert and inane chatter about pudding. We were complicit in the understanding that you would be able to track the outlaw, and to film his daily life. Those few shots you were able to capture on film, or in the absence of coordination, on audio, were not sufficient to warrant the twenty four hour nature of the program. We have therefore reduced your airtime to two hours a day. We also request that you transfer all raw footage to head office for editing.

In the nature of the reports that you have mailed us weekly, we find them sparse in detail. On contacting the Bernadelli Insurance Society, and obtaining the records of Vash the Stampede from then, we recognize your natural inclination is toward dry summary or when possibly veering to description, sentimentality. We request that you include mood, action and dialogue required for human interest, in addition to your observations.

We, as the shareholders, hope that you might find these remarks helpful and that the programming will be able to return to its previously planned 24 hours.

Sincerely,

M. L. Wilson, Chairman  
A. Nordeli, Chief Executive Officer  
J. M. Johnston  
L. W. Cornelia  
… the list had included every name of the board member of the company.

It had been mailed in such a way that it was probably visible to every person who worked for the company. While that may have been a mistake, there was no doubting that they thought her incompetent.

As they approached the city, Milly turned the camera back on and they again policed their thoughts before saying anything aloud. Meryl was gradually beginning to resent what this job had done to the friendship she shared with Milly. The letter had been a death knell to their light banter and the urgency, which they felt the board required of them to find Vash, was putting strain on everyday life. Meryl smiled suddenly, remembering what it had been like when she, Milly, Vash and Wolfwood had been travelling together. There had been serious moments, and terrible times, but she remembered the laughter and the silliness, and now found that she longed for it.

She was surprised to find a queue of cars, trucks and tanks outside the city walls. They must have caught up to a caravan entering the city. She wound down the window and leaned out into the baking sun, she could not see much. Milly wound down her own window and sat on the window and leaned out to see around the truck in front of them.

"There are no people around the cars." She remarked, slipping back into the van and they both wound their windows up, and sat there in relief as the air conditioning worked overtime to cool the cab again.

"That's unusual." Meryl mused. "I've never seen a caravan take so long to enter a city, unless they have a parade day. I don't remember there being any holidays around now."

"There aren't even any children watching the trucks. My big big brother and my little big brother would always go and watch the caravans drive into town, and then they would tell us all about it."

"I'm going to see what is going on." Meryl said and reversed then parked the truck on the side of the road.

Milly unhooked the camera and followed her.

The closer they came to the city, the more Meryl realized that the line of vehicles was not a caravan. It was a miscellaneous collection of cars, busses, trucks and even a secure money delivery van, which had been forced to queue outside of the city. The drivers waved and called to them as they walked past. It seemed everyone recognized her. Meryl put on her best smile.

"Hey, Meryl! Go and tell them at the gates to open up, we've been out here two hours now!"

She waved to the burly truck driver.

"Miss Stryfe! Don't tell us that Vash the Stampede is in there?" A large woman who drove the bus leaned out of the window, and asked in a hoarse whisper that carried and made her passengers chatter nervously among each other.

"You'll know as soon as we find him!" Meryl smiled, making no promises.

They walked on.

"Oi! I watched your show, what happened to the Humanoid Typhoon, did you lose him?"

Meryl congratulated herself on keeping her temper and her natural sarcasm in check.

"We're still looking, sir." She slipped on the last word, and gave the truck driver such a vicious smile that he flinched.

They encountered the real cause of the holdup a few yarz from the city gates. Two large tanks sat on either side of the road and a roadblock had been drawn across it. The truck driver, a skinny man in trousers, a shirt, and a bandanna around his neck, and the grey uniformed Earth Federation Peace Force officials were having an argument about his cargo listing.

She walked up and waited for them to notice. The truck driver took one alarmed look at the camera, dropped the listing and fled back into his cab. He started up the truck with a thunderous roar and swung the truck so that it almost jack knifed and hightailed it away from the city.

The officials ignored the listing, and one waved the next vehicle towards the barrier. Having watched the last escape, the driver of the large articulated truck decided to leave his truck where it was and walked across to the official with his papers.

"Never had to do this before your lot came." He complained at the official.

"That is because you were uncivilized lawless barbarians." The official replied without menace.

Meryl noticed the truck drivers hand twitch towards his gun, but noticing the camera he signed the symbol for crazy behind the officials head and took that as satisfaction.

"Never held much for law," he replied with aplomb, "it stuffs things up that are right and breaks things that are good and lets the self righteous get away with murder in the name of civilization."

The official stared at him. Meryl smiled, this was a man practiced in barroom political discussions.

"Excuse me?"

"Like this, for instance." The truck driver pointed at the queue behind him. "Unnecessary. And you had better say prayers for those poor idiots your civilized law abiding society sent out into the desert, you'll not see them again."

"What?"

"There's worms out there man. Ever seen a worm? Pray that you don't, 'cause you won't likely live to tell the tale. They eat everything, them tanks are too tiny for the likes of the great desert worms. Eat 'em for dinner they will. Now, here's the papers, sign there and let me get my cargo into the city."

The official blustered at being told his business and took another half an hour going over the truck. Meryl and Milly stood and filmed it all. It was only when the truck was eventually cleared and drove on that the officials noticed that they were there.

"Oi!" The officials shout drew three of his fellows over from where they were lounging in the shade of the tank.

"What are you girls doing?"

"I am Meryl Stryfe of No Man's Land Broadcasting, an investigative reporter following the wanted outlaw, Vash the Stampede."

The four Earth Federation Peace Force officials glanced at each other uneasily.

"Vash the Stampede?"

"Wasn't he the plant with the mad brother who created a fused entity?"

"I heard there was a conspiracy to allow them to escape."

"I heard that he's dead."

"You idiot, if he's dead, why's there a $$60 billion on his head?"

"Hah, listen to you, you've gone all native, double dollars indeed."

"It spends better than Terran credits."

Meryl and Milly glanced at each other as the discussion ambled all over the place, the Terrans convicting themselves of all kinds of prejudice and misinformation.

"What is going on here?"

Meryl smiled as an official hurried over; he looked to be at least a sergeant, and was buttoning up his coat as if he had removed it to take a siesta.

"What are you filming for? Turn that thing off; this is a restricted military area!"

"Under what jurisdiction?" Meryl asked sweetly.

"Er…" The sergeant turned red, if he said Terran, he would likely have the Feds on him as soon as Milly uploaded the footage, and if he said Federal, he would have them on his tail for lying.

"There was an accident near here a week ago, this is a private Terran investigation and we would strongly suggest that you not film this area until the investigation is completed."

Clever man, Meryl congratulated him silently. She upped her ante and used her best jargon.

"Would you be able to divulge the nature of this investigation, to whit, the object of pursuit?"

"We're not chasing Vash the Stampede, Meryl Stryfe."

Meryl felt ice crawl all the way down her spine at the tone of that voice. She did not know the tall bulky man who belonged to it, but she recognized the snide authority in his voice. He knew something she did not. He was not dressed as the Terran's were, and by his drawl of an accent was a native of No Man's Land, but there was something odd about it. She could not quite place what it was. Perhaps he came from the far west; she knew there were certain dialects that gave the language a different sound. He wore a broad brimmed hat and a long coat, suitable for the hot sun.

He held out a fold of leather and she took it. Opening it, she found a Marshall's badge, with his name, Jeb Johnston.

"As our jurisdiction includes the city and five iles beyond it, I ask with due respect to the NLBC and their activities, that you stop filming. We are trying to conduct an operation which will be disturbed if you broadcast it."

Meryl turned to the camera.

"As requested we shall stop filming..."

A sudden explosion happened out in the desert. Meryl staggered backwards at the strength of it and it rocked all the vehicles. Milly turned with graceful agility and focused on a half orb of light rising from the desert floor. Meryl had seen such a light before and sincerely hoped never to see it again. It had blasted a crater in the fifth moon. She and Milly turned as one to the bulky marshal.

"That looks very much like our target, Marshall." She said sweetly, shoving all heart break to the back of her mind. That sort of power would certainly harm Vash greatly, if not kill him.

"No." Johnston said, but his face was cold. "That is not Vash the Stampede."

The com at his side blipped into life.

"Johnston!" He barked into the hand unit and scowled. "What the hell happened?" He saw them filming. "And turn that thing off!"

Milly did so, reluctantly, but Meryl kept the audio.

"Dunno sir!" The panicked voice came over the com. "There was this giant thing sir, like a worm, only no worm ever had so many teeth! It ate three tanks sir. We fired on it and more came, they just sink into the sand sir. Then there was this, this man sir. Like that desert man and he just stood there, like we couldn't touch him. And we couldn't sir. Everyone is dead sir, just me and Avery, aaghr…"

There was silence.

"Confiscate the camera." Johnston ordered his men, then turned and walked back to the city.

Milly unhappily handed over the camera.

They were escorted back to their truck and rejoined the queue. By the time they were three vehicles away from the gate Meryl decided she'd had enough. She pulled her cloak over her shoulders and removed all the microphones in it. She placed the single derringer into its holster and made a mental note to write home for the crate under her bed to be sent on to the next city. What had she been thinking leaving them all behind, that life as a TV reporter was going to be glamorous? That dream had died on the very first day of shooting.

"Milly, you drive into the city. I want to have a quick look around to find out what the hell is going on here. That was a plant, and if it is not Vash or Knives, then it must be one of the new Terran plants going mad." She gave a hiss of frustration. "I wish Vash were here, he'd know what to do."

"He'd just make that scary face of his and tell us to stay back and sort it out by himself." Milly reflected anxiously. She sniffed. "I wish Mister Priest were here. He would help Mister Vash." Tears spilled from her eyes and Meryl left her cloak alterations and gave her friend a hug.

They held each other for a while until Milly sniffed and took a calming breath. "I'm fine now Meryl. Get into the city and make them wish they never sent anything after that plant."

She walked back along the queue of trucks that had formed behind their car in the five hour wait it had taken for them to reach the third spot in the queue. For this to work, she needed to reach the city walls, and in order to do that she had to circle the city by at least an ile so that they could not see her from the main gate. An hour later she clambered over the crumbled wall. It seemed a well known gap, as there was a hard worn path into the desert from there. The city was much like any other, flat roofed stone and mortar buildings with metal doors and window frames. She made her way through the city streets, and the normal everyday life of people chatting to one another and children chasing each other was eerily unnerving in light of what she had just witnessed.

Suddenly a siren wailed and others took it up. In five seconds, the streets had cleared.

"Hey Miss!" A man called, waving over the Saloon doors, "get in here!"

She hurried over to the press of people peering out of the door, all looking up the street. A moment later an Earth Federation Peace Force truck sped through the streets at a speed Milly would be proud of, they were followed by a convoy of trucks, all armed to the teeth. Meryl stared. The centre one was enormous and carried a whole plant orb. The words "Plant Installations" was emblazoned on the sides of the trucks as they rumbled passed. She leaned out of the door, still staring as it went up the main street into the centre of the city where the power station was situated.

"Quite a sight to see, eh?" The man remarked, leaning on the saloon doors. "It's the reason the Terrans are so twitchy. They lost one of them last week."

Meryl gaped at him, incredulously. She wondered who had helped in the loosing of a plant orb. The sirens wailed again and the people went about their business.

"What is going on?" Meryl asked, bewildered.

"Terran watch." A woman explained as they trooped out of the Saloon. "They used to just run us down if we were in the way. So now we have a warning if any of their cars enters our areas."

"What? You're letting them bully you?"

"It's better than it was." The woman shrugged and gave her a defeated smile, then moved on.

"At least they are restoring the lost power." The man returned to his seat on the bench outside the saloon and took a slow drink of his beer. "We've been on rolling blackouts since that damned Knives nicked most of our plants."

Fuming, Meryl walked purposefully through the streets. It took her half an hour to cross the city. Having learned the drill the first time, she could dart off the streets with the citizens when the siren sounded again. She found herself perversely plotting to put down caltrops. She marveled at her thoughts, how had she managed to allow the Terran's to get to her that much? That was no way to help them integrate into their society. But it remained that they were different, and it made them difficult to get along with when they enforced their ways on a place that operated by different rules.

She found the Sheriff's office and stood in the shade of the building opposite, wondering what to do. She scratched several approaches, choosing honest and friendly as the best. She was entitled to speak to an officer of the law if she so chose. They needed Milly's camera back. No Man's Land Broadcasting would take a dim view of their losing it in light of their last missive. She took a step towards the office when an explosion hit the city. From the concussion that almost threw her to the ground, it was nearby. She staggered over with a crowd of other shocked citizens to find a half demolished building and a brawl going on in the street. She clambered up onto a broad window ledge and peered over the crowd, not surprised to see Terrans and the natives fighting it out. She did not blame the citizens of the city, as the Terrans certainly rubbed against the grain awfully. When bullets began flying in her direction, she dropped from the ledge and scuttled around the corner.

"There he goes!"

She leaped around the corner to see what the commotion was just in time to see the tails of a very familiar red coat vanish around the corner of the street. Hah! She sprinted after the crowd, so Vash was here, after all this time! She ran four blocks and then doubled over gasping for breath. The bounty hunters and city opportunists had run on ahead. She was astonished at how unfit she had become over the past eight months, not walking every day. She was certainly not fit enough to chase down Vash! What had she been thinking? She knew how he could run when people were after him. She smiled up at the blue sky as relief poured into her heart. At least he was alive. She felt sorry for whoever that plant had been, but it had not been Vash. She sniffed and wiped at her eyes. Ah no! She hurriedly scrubbed her eyes and took a steadying breath. She was not crying over that man.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Chapter 4**_

She retraced her steps to the Sheriff's office, just as a Terran Task Team truck drove past. It came to a halt outside the Sheriff's office and several officers climbed out and entered the office. She then recognized Johnston and felt herself go cold. He did not see her and entered the office, but he made her falter in her footsteps. The sergeant disembarked last and glanced at her. She squared her shoulders, they had the camera and she would have it back!

"It's that woman!" He called, making the other men walk back out of the office to look at her. "The spy."

The what?

Meryl did not wait for any further outrageous explanations. The Terrans had made it more than clear that they acted first and asked questions later. Spies of any kind were usually shot. She sprinted away, darting through the city streets until she staggered into a small alley and collapsed beside a stinking dustbin. She heard people run past and then the sound died away. She rested her head against the wall and stared up at the thin strip of blue sky she could see high above her. The Terrans were becoming a problem. She was rather shocked to find herself composing a letter in her head to Bernadelli, requesting information on Johnston. Though the new Bernadelli was still trying to sort out the scattered records from before the incident with Knives, she was certain the ones gathered since the agency was reconstituted were accessible. She looked at her hands, wondering what was going on in her mind. It was not like her to dither. She worked for NLBC now, why did she keep thinking of Bernadelli? She considered this for a long while and the answer only partially came to her. She was unhappy. NLBC had not worked out anything like she and Milly had hoped. In fact, it was making things bad between them, and possibly estranging them further from Vash. She had intended it to help him, or at least allow her and Milly to be around should he need help, but having discovered just how well known the show had made her, made her realize that it was definitely doing the opposite of helping him in that regard.

However, that did not explain why the Terran's thought she was a spy. She felt her stomach suddenly knot up into a tight ball of terror. What had happened to Milly? Oh, she could just see the spin those Terrans could put on things if they needed to get out of explaining what they had done in the desert. Putting a bullet through the head of an innocent woman would possibly be the easiest. She stood up and removed her cape, reversed it, so that the odd holster straps and the purple lining were facing outward, so that her appearance would not be immediately recognizable and retied it. She palmed the derringer and set out for the city gate on the far side of town to the one Milly would have entered. The guide had mentioned one that served Ceylon tea, and it would be a likely place to start the hunt if Milly had the choosing. She crossed town, walking down side streets and alleys and avoiding main roads if she could help it. She emerged at the boarding house; it had the luxury of a small garden in a terrarium at the front door. She stared at the astonishing sight as she stepped in. She smiled as she saw a familiar tall figure talking in earnest to three gentlemen who seemed to be admiring her rather than listening to her words. Meryl smiled, Milly often attracted those expressions, but she never seemed to notice them.

"Hello Milly."

"Meryl!" Milly cried and ran over to her and hugged her. There was a heavy thunk on the ground as Milly knelt and flung her arms around her. Meryl found herself tucked in beside the large stun gun.

"Ah, where have you been hiding this?" She asked in a whisper.

"Under the editing desk." She said with a happy smile. "No one ever looks in the gap behind the drawers. Oh Meryl!"

"Is this your friend?"

Milly stood, carefully tucking the stun gun away under her coat, but not before the three men had all exchanged glances with raised eyebrows.

"Yes. Yes she is. Thank you so much for your help."

"Only a pleasure miss." He touched his forehead and the three of them returned to the dining hall, and the private bar at the far end.

"They helped me when the sirens went off. I didn't know I was supposed to be off the street. I was nearly run over by the Terrans." She smiled after the men. "Oh, and I booked us a room."

"A spy!" Milly exclaimed as Meryl told her story as they were sitting on their beds opposite each other. "No, I didn't say anything. I just told them that you were resting in the back of the truck, and they let me through."

"Ooh, it's that Johnston. I bet it is." Meryl muttered.

"It could be, or he could want to hide the fact that the Terrans were defeated by a plant. He is trouble, Meryl. A bad sort of trouble."

Meryl turned over restlessly. Milly was fast asleep, but she had been turning for the last hour. She checked the time. It was two in the morning. She gave a huff of frustration and pulled on her clothes. She just had to follow her gut on this one, and that drew her to the Sheriff's office. She had to find out what Marshal Johnston was plotting.

She slipped out of the boarding house, marveling at how cold it was at night, and how bright the stars were. It was odd, most towns closed their bars well after midnight, and there were usually still the occasional people on the streets, but it was utterly deserted. She wondered at the change the Terrans had wrought, and found she did not much care for it.

She went around the back of the Sheriff's office and checked the windows, and sure enough found one open. There was an old upturned bucket there, so this seemed to be the night entrance to the building. She would have to be careful, as she was clearly not alone in her nightly escapade. She hauled herself in at the window and dropped lightly into the room. Nothing stirred. It was an administration office, as she recognized the piles of paperwork, typewriters and containers of pens scattered all over the desks. She went over to the door and cracked it open, but there was no one beyond, so she slipped out into the passage. Moon light came through from the tall windows in the front door and faded as it went further into the passage. After opening several doors, she reached the main office, where the temporary holding cells were, and saw a light shining out from the door. She reached out to open the door.

"Hello." A bass growl sounded behind her. She almost fainted with fright; she had not heard a sound. She hastily raised her hands as she felt the cold circle of a gun barrel touch the back of her neck. The greeting had not been friendly.

"In you go." She caught a slight glimpse of her captor, a man taller than Vash, with huge shoulders. He had a bionic attachment to the left side of his face, and his right forearm and half his hand. Meryl marveled with a faint rising horror, cyborgs were common enough on the Outer, but they usually were simple prosthetics, like Vash wore, for replacement limbs or appendages. However, the argumentation of prosthetic parts had skyrocketed since the arrival of the Terrans. She had heard the cybernetic department of Bernadelli complaining bitterly in the past six months of people drawing claims for the loss and replacement of body parts due to some underworld gang connected to this.

She slowly lowered her hand to the doorknob and twisted it. The giant behind her reached out with his non-augmented left hand and pushed it open. It was the jailor's office, lit by a single bulb hung from the ceiling, and four people were in the barred jail cell behind the desk. One lay slumped in the corner as if unconscious, wrapped in a cloak of mottled browns, and then standing at the bars was a tall bald man in a grey coat with dark eyebrows and sunken hopeless grey eyes. Beside him was a short portly man, in a green waistcoat and jacket, though with a white dog collar and cross pendant marking him as a priest. The fourth wore a very characteristic red duster with a new collection of bullet holes in the hem and a half terrified grin on his face. Meryl avoided his eyes.

In the jailers chair a heavyset older man with three chins and an unlit cigar in his mouth, slouched dozing. He blinked awake, then leaped out of the chair with some alacrity as the giant stepped in.

"Look what I've brought you boys!" The giant pushed her across the room and the heavyset man hurried to unlock the door.

"So can we accommodate one another, Fulstaff?" The giant growled at him, the man winced as he was pounded heartily on the shoulder. Meryl stumbled into the jail and the door slammed behind her.

"Well have your fun, fellas, dawn sees you tapdance to hell." The giant laughed gruffly, and lumbered out.

Fulstaff slumped back in the chair and turned his back on them.

The rotund priest was the first to talk.

"Don't look so frightened, miss, I'm a minister in this city, I won't lay a hand on you."

The bald man whimpered, refusing to look at her, his eyes were all for the man in the chair.

"What?" Vash laughed incredulously. "You mean she's all mine?"

Meryl stood stock still as he pranced over and made a show of draping himself around her. She elbowed him in the ribs, careful to avoid the area where she had bandaged his stomach and he prudently settled for slinging an arm around her shoulder.

"Young man!" The minister said reprovingly, actually daring to march over to them in order to protect her. She was impressed at his chivalry, especially as Vash topped him by two feet.

"How can it be that you are his brother?"

Meryl jumped and felt Vash freeze beside her. They turned to the corner where the man they had supposed to be asleep, now watched them with strangely reflective eyes peering out from in the depths of his cloak. Meryl stared, feeling a strange terror creep over her. She had only ever seen eyes with such strange slit pupils on those controlled by the Sandworms. He had spoken with a strange accent. He gazed a moment at each one of them then closed his eerie eyes once more.

"What did you say?" Vash asked quietly.

The man did not reply. Vash released her and went across to him, but the man did not respond to his shaking.

"Hey, mister, I just want to talk." Vash explained as he crouched beside him.

"I'm surprised he said anything at all." The minister reflected. "That is the only time he's spoken or woken in the three days I've been here."

"Who is he?" Meryl asked, staring at him.

Vash stood up and gazed down at the man, his green eyes worried.

"He shouldn't be in town." He said quietly. Meryl agreed whole heartedly, he could bring insects, or worse, the worms themselves to him.

"Do you know him?" The minister asked, surprised.

Vash returned to lean against the bars beside the minister.

"Not him!" Vash laughed. "But his folk, he's one of the deep desert people." He shrugged the matter off.

Meryl turned and stared, if Vash had guessed correctly, then this man was a source of one of the many strange legends that rippled across the planet. It was said that there were those who could survive without the aid of the lost technology, out in the open deserts, among the sand worms and the insect hive mind. She thought of how she had seen the flash of light in the desert and heard the report. She glanced at the tall man in red to find him watching her with his gentle green eyes. Gentle? Hah! This was Vash. She had to remember who he was, and not ever forget. She glanced away, catching sight of the desert man. Yes, Vash was another such legend. Why did she suddenly get the feeling that things were going to go badly south from here?

She was distracted from her brooding when Vash draped his arm around her shoulders again. The minister decided to physically intervene this time and took hold of Vash's other arm.

"Young man!" He scolded.

Meryl rolled her eyes.

"We know each other." She informed the minister, then elbowed Vash in the ribs, catching the odd metal implant he had there with her funny bone. She clutched her elbow as it tingled painfully trying not to curse aloud. The minister looked relieved and Vash gave her his worst cheesy apologetic grin.

Before she could ask what he was doing there, or find out from the other prisoners what in the world was going on outside, the door opened again. A tall bulky man stepped into the room, still wearing his trademark coat and hat while indoors. The giant followed him. Fulstaff leaped to his feet and saluted.

"Well remembered, deputy." Johnston purred, and turned to the cell.

She was startled when Vash draped himself all over her, hugging her to him. He didn't hug very well, it was more like crushing the breath out of her and trapping her sore elbow at an odd angle against his leather body armor he wore under his coat. She slapped him with her free hand and he dropped her, looking pathetically disappointed. She staggered to gain her balance against the far wall, trying not to fall on the odd desert man.

Johnston gave a bark of laughter, it sounded like a pig grunting.

"So she's your type, Vash?"

To her astonishment he nodded. Something else was going on here. She gritted her teeth, oh was she going to make him pay for this afterwards.

"Then she's yours till dawn, if you can tame her."

She turned to the man, furious.

"I am Meryl Stryfe of Ber, er, No Man's Land Broadcasting, detain me at your peril."

"So you have told me." He said and glanced at Vash. "She's the one who has been chasing you all these years, no wonder you like her. Hah!"

Meryl could not think straight with mortified fury, but she did not expect Vash's reaction. He took two strides across the cell, tucked her behind his back and spoke in a voice that terrified her and made her weak at the knees at the same time.

"This has nothing to do with her." He breathed. She felt herself go cold, the only time she had heard that fury in his tone was when fighting opponents beyond the strength of human. "This is between you and me, Johnston."

Oh no, he was protecting her. Who the hell was Johnston that he would respond like that?

She rapped him on the back. He simply tightened his grip. It was then that something else occurred to her. Not many people knew that Bernadelli had assigned Milly and her to watch Vash. How had this man found out so much?

"You would challenge me for the right to keep her?" The man laughed. "Why bother? She is only a fragile human. You're a plant surely there are better sights out there for you?"

She winced as Vash locked his grip. He tightened his fist, but did not increase the pressure on her arm.

"She is, but so are you, and the others in this room, and in this city that you are busy destroying."

She then realized that she had one arm free. She slipped the one derringer she had cleaned and loaded from her cloak. He continued his plea.

"There is so much precious life here. Why do you want to destroy it?"

She pressed the derringers flat form into Vash's back so he could feel what it was. He twitched his hand and released her arm, then closed his fingers around the gun. He signed two fingers then one finger and waited, how many shots, she supposed. She grabbed one finger then released it. He gave her a thumbs up and palmed the derringer out of sight. Then to Meryl's surprise, he stepped forward and bowed down on his knees with his head to the floor.

"Can't you find a way to live in peace with this town?"

Johnston's expression was a picture of incredulity. He walked up to the bars.

"Are you sure he's Vash the Stampede?" He snarled. "Where's his poster Deputy?"

Fulstaff pulled out the poster from a pile on the desk and the furious Marshal compared the two. It was an older poster of Vash with blond hair.

Johnston gazed at it for a long while and then looked at Vash. Meryl saw him choose the lie.

"He's an imposter! Again! This is the fourth one we've had in three months!" He turned to the deputy. "Let him out, and the girl. She'll give him some incentive. Nice double act you two! You had me fooled right up until he caved!"

Fulstaff opened the door and Meryl was not entirely surprised when Vash grabbed her arm and kept himself between her and Johnston on their way out. Fulstaff swung the cell door closed as the room door swung open silently. A split second later two stun gun claws leaped through it, and a shot went off. Meryl watched as the giant half turned, and collapsed on the floor with a thud and Johnston crumpled in the corner, his head bleeding. Vash turned to Fulstaff.

"Get out of this city tonight. If Johnston finds you, you'll die."

The man whimpered and dropped the cell keys, then ran. Vash unlocked the cell door.

"Milly, where are you parked?"

"How did you guess?" Milly asked, amazed.

"You're carrying the keys." He said, amused.

"In the back lane." She explained.

"Excellent."

"I must find something first." She said, and shouldered her stun gun and hurried off.

Vash glanced at Meryl, who shrugged. He darted into the cell, lifted the desert man easily, and slung him over his shoulder. The man hung as though unconscious.

"I'd make myself scarce if I were you." Meryl said, noticing the two other occupants of the cell were gaping at them.

"Right." The minister patted his paunch and sized up the haunted man. "Come along now, out we go." He took the man by the arm and dragged him out after him.

Meryl and Vash hung around outside the van in the dark alley. Meryl felt very vulnerable as she waited. Milly eventually reappeared, carrying her stun gun under one arm and the camera on her shoulder. Meryl grinned at her.

"Nice one!"

She took the keys from her partner, so Vash could put the unconscious man inside, and then he helped her with the camera. He climbed back into the van and affixed the camera in its usual place, then slipped into the driver's seat as Milly clambered on board.

"Oh no you don't!" Meryl tugged at his shoulder; all she could feel beneath the red cloth was the hard leather body armor. "You crashed our car the last time, remember!"

"That was so long ago!" He protested pathetically.

A light came on upstairs in the sheriff's office.

"Move it!" Meryl tried to haul him out of the chair and realized just how much heavier he was than even Milly. He shifted reluctantly to the passenger chair.

"You must follow my instructions exactly." He snapped her.

"What's wrong Vash?" She demanded, startled by his abrupt behavior.

"We need to get that man out into the desert before sunrise. Drive to the north gate of the city."

Meryl started the car and began to drive, she did not agree with this, but anywhere was better than the Sheriff's office.

She pulled in at the boarding house where she and Milly stayed.

"Why are we stopping here?" He asked, bewildered.

"All our equipment and clothes are here." She explained as if it were obvious. "And I am sure the Terrans will have the gates watched. We have to think of a plan."

He sat back in the chair.

"Get your things." He said with patience.

She and Milly hurried out and into the boarding house. She heard the sound of the engine as she closed the door of their room and they both ran to the window to see the van roaring off down the road, Vash drove worse than Milly did. Meryl kicked herself for being so stupid. She had misinterpreted the urgency about him.

* * *

They woke the next morning and Meryl went downstairs to check, but the van was gone. So was their camera. Milly smiled at her as she entered the dining hall and sat down.

"What are we going to do Meryl?" She asked, worried.

"Tell NLBC that Vash stole our van."

She could just imagine how that would go down.

"No." They both agreed.

"Mister Vash probably crashed our van in the desert somewhere. We can go and look for it."

"Okay, you hire the tomas's, I'll settle the bill."

It took them a day. For the first part they had been able to follow the trail into the desert, then it had become obscured. After roaming in wider and wider circles, they had almost given up, then they had seen a trail of wreckage cascading down a dune. They discovered the van on its side, with a large bite out of it, half way up the dune. The bite made Meryl's flesh creep. It screamed sandworm, but it was too close to the city for worms, something unusual had happened.

"Mister Vash!" Milly called in panic, but when they got there, the van was empty. The editing desk lay in wrecked pieces all over the dune, the inside had been stripped, there were no metal plates or chairs, or engine left, just the shell of the van. Everything, except the camera and the charging pack, which lay neatly in one corner as if whoever had stripped the truck had been ordered not to touch it. Milly went over to it and picked it up, awed. Beside it lay a single microphone. Meryl took it and found a note tied to it.

"Enjoy the footage." She recognized Vash's handwriting.

"Milly. Set the camera to replay."

They crowded around the screen and watched as Vash drove with one hand through the streets and with the other picked up the camera.

"Hello! I am Vash the Stampede! I heard that this show is about me, but I have watched it and have not seen much of me! Where are the stunt doubles and the action figures and the luscious leading ladies? I am very disappointed! Aaah!" He dropped the camera and the whole frame lurched and showed the floor at the passenger side as there was a metallic screeching and a thumping and grinding as it sounded like he was driving over rocks. "Aaah, ow, oh, aah, crap, ow!" Another thump sounded and the driving became more even. The Camera was picked up again, this time upside down.

"They should really take these little fence things out of the middle of the road! Why do cities make things so difficult?" He turned the camera for an upside down view of the road.

Meryl winced at the speed.

He tore around two corners, the wheels screeching.

"I was also hoping for daring adventure and bold declarations of love and peace, but all I have seen is lots and lots of very very boring sand."

"Whose fault is that Vash?" Meryl snapped at the screen.

"Now, Meryl." Milly said calmly.

"Ooh! Hold on!" Vash put the camera down on the passenger seat, and the dashboard. Meryl flinched as he floored the accelerator. He sped towards the city gates at what must have been eighty iles an hour. There was a sudden thunderous crack of a gunshot and the gates shuddered. The car slammed into them and they sprang aside, thudding heavily against the outer walls of the city.

"Oh man, they are not happy about that!" Vash sounded delighted. He grabbed the camera again and stuck his arm out of the window. They were treated to a view of the city; floodlights had been switched on and were chasing the car with their beams. There were many lights atop the gate flickering on, and some gun shots, but no pursuit.

"Good, they at least know that much." Vash said happily as he drew the camera back in. "Don't go into the desert at night, it is more dangerous than the day."

He balanced the camera on the dashboard again.

A wail of a siren started up.

"Aw man, they are chasing me! Time to leave the road!"

The van swerved and almost tumbled down the side of the dune. There were several minutes of intense dune racing, Vash ran circles around the flashing police cars chasing him, and Meryl slowly realized that he was herding them back to the city. He eventually slipped behind a dune and killed the engine and waited. The cars flashed by in the distance a few times.

"We can't have them out here." He said conversationally to the camera. He reached over and picked it up and smiled. Meryl felt her heart stop at that smile. It was his happy contented smile.

"In fact we can't have you out here either. Remember, love and peace!"

The clip ended.

They looked at each other.

"Meryl, why do I think that Mister Vash has done the best show we have yet, all by himself?"

Meryl ground her teeth.

"Because he has!" She growled. "Oh, send that in, and NLBC can hire Vash to do his own show!"

"Meryl, are you upset?"

"No!"

She turned away and walked out of the van, back to where the thomas's waited, scratching at the sand with their large iron shod feet. She could not begin to express how she felt. She had been so afraid he had been dead, and then had met him and he had protected her. She wondered if this were not part of that protection too, to give them a reason to continue to pursue him, but on his own terms. It was then that she realized he still had her derringer. She put her head on the saddle and sighed. That man!


	5. Chapter 5

_**Chapter 5**_

Being on tomas back, Meryl discovered, made them all that more accessible to the public. They only had to ride into town for people to come over to them and greet them. Milly was surrounded by children and young teenagers who were eager to give their opinion of Vash the Stampede.

"He's like crazy awesome!" One young boy, who had his short hair spiked up in a rather poor mimic of Vash's, fired finger guns into the air.

"Mum says he saved this town once." A girl remarked. "Stood up to a gunman and didn't even fire a bullet."

"I met him once." A ragged boy in patched clothes said, making the other kids laugh at him. He glared at them angrily. "I so did. He let me and my brothers wrestle him in the town where we stayed." He gave a broad grin. "We got him so good!"

Meryl smiled. The children were at least sure he was a hero, the adults she had met, were less forthcoming with their praise.

A sour faced woman glared at them and shooed the children off.

"Someone should take that bounty he has, and we would be able to sleep better in our beds at night! How can the feds allow such a demon to walk free?"

Meryl kept her tongue firmly between her teeth, and her face away from the camera as her jaw worked to keep her fury inside.

She and Milly had stuck out a boring three days in a saloon, while a sand storm raged. They had inadvertently set up an interview table in the corner by propping the camera on the shelf behind them. They were eyed suspiciously as strangers, but one of the patrons recognized them. He sidled up to them with a jug of beer.

"Meryl Stryfe?" He gestured with the jug and tipped a small helping into their mugs and then seated himself. Meryl froze with her cup half way to her lips as he took a large slurp from the jug.

"This man you've been filming." He said with earnest solemnity. "He's not Vash the Stampede. I know."

"But we know he is!" Milly smiled.

"Naw, 'is name's John. I worked shifts alongside him at the Saloon near Dankin Town. Talked such nonsense as you never did hear! 'e's just takin' the piss, pretending and all. He'd sooner scarper than fight an almighty scary plant like that Knives. Now 'e's the one ya should be tailing. Bad all the way to the bone, that one."

Meryl caught Milly's glance. No one knew where Knives was, and for some reason no one spoke about it. Oh, the Feds had put up posters, but what they would do if he ever came to light, no one knew. The man tipped the jug up and gulped the last of his beer.

"Jus' telling ya. Ya look like nice girls and all, but ya need to tell yer news company that we don't believe all them lies they tell."

Milly and Meryl stared incredulously after the man. After he had left, several of the more garrulous drunks had ambled over and settled at the table to discuss, 'The Stampede Matter,' as a more erudite member of their group named it. It was almost a relief that they believed.

"Cheeky blighter, I met him once when I was seventeen."

"You wos never seventeen, Joe." His mate riled him.

"And you was born with nae balls," Joe responded, "as I was sayin," he spoke over his friends spluttering, "he comed into town and runned out a smuggling gang. Silliest man I's ever met. But 'e could drink like a champion."

In another town, this time outside the buildings around the power plant housing, a grey haired old man in the overalls of a plant engineer waved them over. They had only approached the Power plant so as to try film "Plant Installations" delivering a new orb for the city.

"Meryl! Meryl Stryfe!"

She trotted her tomas over and Milly followed.

"I saw you're interviewing people about Vash, I have a tale if you are interested."

Milly lifted the camera from the back of the tomas and Meryl handed him the microphone. He seemed startled that it was quite so impromptu, but took the mike.

"Ah, I met him, it must have been twenty years ago now, he came past this very plant. Got inside, you know, without any pass codes. We found him standing in the room, staring at the bulb. Now we knew his reputation and thought he was going to sabotage the bulb, but he just turned to us and smiled." The man paused. "You ever see him smile like that? All peaceful like. I've never seen anyone with an expression like that." He scratched the back of his head, a gesture that strongly reminded Meryl of Vash. "Well, he said we treated her well, and thanked us then left. It was odd really. We never knew until now that he was like her family. We did not know about them free walking plants back then."

He shrugged and handed back the microphone.

"Haven't you any lead on him?" He asked as Milly returned the camera to its perch on the back of her packs.

"No." Meryl sighed. Vash had been worryingly quiet of late.

"I don't know if this will help, but he is always where he is most needed. Perhaps that is something you need to do, go to where you will be most needed. And if it is right that you meet, you will."

He smiled at their puzzled expressions.

"I did not want to say this on record," he explained, "but Vash came at a time when there were many problems at the plant. His simple remark that we treated the plant well, allowed us to refocus our work and smooth things out. He knows the power of words, and deeds."

He glanced back at the power plant where there were people were crawling all over it to install the new orb.

"We're lucky to get this." He smiled sadly. "The satellite announced that several neighboring towns lost theirs as the deliveries got lost en route. We're all a long way from Octovern."

They rode out of town. Meryl found herself brooding on what the old engineer had said. Where they were most needed? She turned to Milly who was filming the outskirts of the town as they dwindled into the distance. She waited until her partner had replaced the camera on her pack before speaking.

"Where do you think we are most needed, Milly?"

Milly put a finger to her mouth thoughtfully.

"Where hidden things must be revealed, I guess."

"What?" Meryl said puzzled, sometimes Milly could outthink her in such a way that she did not even know how to begin to follow her.

"Well, we have a camera and access to a worldwide broadcast channel, so it follows that we should discover things that the world needs to know."

"And if those things include Vash, bonus for us." She smiled, thinking about the disappearing orbs. But the attacks were random, and they had yet to encounter the heavily armed Plant Installations convoys en route.

Milly grinned her answer.

The philosophical conundrum solved, however, did not give them any definite heading, but she remembered one thing, that Vash was a drifter. And having reached the last town in the east, at the outskirts of the land where the desert became the great desert, habitable only by sandworms, they had turned and begun drifting west once more. This, she knew, would bring them back into old territory, places with memories and things perhaps they did not want to remember. However, if she knew Vash, he was out there, possibly passing through a town for his tenth or even hundredth time. Who knew what memories it held for him, and how he managed to face each day with a smile.

* * *

Swinsonville

Meryl was unusually glad for the strong wind and the stinging sand when they arrived at their new destination. Since Vash had destroyed their van, they had been on tomas back. The NLBC had refused to replace the van for them, saying that they were fortunate to have captured such an interesting episode or the company would have charged them for the loss. Meryl hardly thought it fair, and often longed for the comfort of the chair and the air-conditioned cab. But at times like today, she was grateful that she and Milly looked indistinguishable from regular travelers.

The Earth Federation Peace Force had a squad of trucks and tanks parked outside, and were inspecting the vehicles. Had someone worked out how to steal another plant orb from their Installation crew? The Terrans needed to get some No Man's Landers in on the job if they wanted to get around the thievery. It was too similar an occurrence to the last, so she and Milly had already prearranged a meeting place in town, the old Saloon just off the main street, and had separated to enter the town at different places. Meryl rode in from the south and Milly from the north. Meryl was rather disappointed when she led the tomas into the shelter of the dusty stable to find Milly waiting there for her.

"See anything odd?" She asked as she unloaded her saddle bags.

"Not any sign of Mister Vash." Milly sounded disappointed. "But I did pass a pudding shop, they were going cheap! I bought a whole bag!"

Meryl grinned and brought out the large box of doughnuts she had procured.

"Now all we need is a good bath and we can explore the town." She said.

A sudden thunderous sound made the stable roof quiver and the tomas's flinch and kick. Meryl dropped her bag and hauled herself up on the divider between the stalls. Milly simply put her hand over the tomas's small head.

"They can sense your fear." She told Meryl.

"I still have the bruise from when the last one kicked me!" Meryl complained as Milly calmed her tomas and helped her down. She had limped for a week after, and the bruise was now an exquisite blue, purple and yellow streak down her calf.

"What do you think happened?" Milly asked.

They smiled at each other. They dumped their stuff in the small room they had hired over the saloon, grabbed the camera and the mike and went in search of mayhem.

* * *

Vash leaped after the running men, bewildered. Somehow, he had just been enjoying a cool, well earned beer in a quiet drinking hole at the edge of the town, when suddenly the wall facing the street had imploded. Everyone in the bar had grouped together, scrambling out the back door, and he had had to follow them, or be gunned down by the Earth Federation Peace Force truck that now stood outside. The men staggered down a side street and leaned against the walls, gasping and catching their breath, one leaned over and brought up his lunch with accompanying commentaries of disgust from his friends.

"Them bloody Terrans, think they run this town, just 'cause the mayor called in the Peace Force!"

"How did they know we were there?" The man who had just thrown up wiped his mouth then spat against the wall.

"Someone snitched!" Another man grouched.

They looked suspiciously at each other and Vash found a number of hard eyes facing him.

"Who're you?"

"Ooh, er…." Vash recognized the terrified recognition tremor. The man didn't pass out, but looked close.

"You moron, he's that crazy rogue plant, Vash the Stampede with the mad brother, you know."

Nice description, not insulting at all. Vash smiled.

"He's smiling."

"I hardly think he'd tell the Terrans." An older man at the back of the group remarked. "They want him dead."

"So you think it's him they're after?"

"No." The older man said calmly. "They came at Greeb's bar, and no one knows that Greeb has a bar except his clientele. So it follows that we have a spy." He saw the expressions on their faces. "It's not him, you idiots. He arrived today, and you've all seen that show about him. He's not pals with the Terran's either." The older man held out his hand, and Vash shook it, surprised at the expression of relief on the man's face.

"Name of Craig." The man said. "I'm Master Nathanial's man. We could use a gunman like you, if you'd be willing."

"What has happened?" Vash asked, feeling the irresistible pull of intrigue; this was something deeper than neighbors rubbing up against each other the wrong way.

They entered a triple story mansion, situated in large grounds at the outskirts of the city. What impressed Vash at first was the open pool that stood in the centre of the main hall. There were water lilies floating in it. The wealth alone that that spoke of, he marveled. There had been no water lilies before the Terrans had come, though he remembered them from having read about flowers in his childhood. Two broad stairwells rose up on either side of the hall to the upper landing. He trooped after Craig and his men as they entered the house and went up the stairs.

Craig opened a door on the landing and they entered a very well appointed sitting room, with tall windows looking out over the city. Vash watched as another plume of debris rose into the air. What had the people so upset?

"Oh, Craig, it is you."

He turned, automatically, at hearing that smooth voice. He could drown in a voice like that, so feminine and warm, yet somehow seductive. A tall graceful young woman lounged on the divan, and waved a gloved hand at the older man. Craig went to her side and took it briefly then stepped back.

"Miss Swinson, we have recruited a gunman to our cause."

Vash smiled happily, as she gazed at him, her dark brown eyes were warm and her pale hair fell in curls around her face.

"Ah, your reputation precedes you, Vash the Stampede."

"I'm your ace gunman, my lady."

He took the opportunity to kneel by her side and to take her hand. He noticed, regretfully, that she tugged it away before he could kiss it.

"Any news on Nathanial?" She asked anxiously.

"He's at a safe house." Craig said sounding defeated. "We guessed right, we have a spy in our midst."

Miss Swinson put a handkerchief to her mouth and quietly stifled a sob. Vash gazed at her in horror.

"What troubles you, lady?"

They explained, and she shed more tears. Vash stood and peered out of the windows over the city.

"It is not right that you are here, Miss Swinson." He said, regretfully.

"Who are you to decide that?" Her voice grew sharp.

"One who would put an end to this." He said with a faint smile then noticed that they were all gawking at him. Ah, he had been on his own for too long, he had forgotten people sometimes struggled to keep up. He laughed worriedly.

"Anyone have any ideas?"

The familiar eye rolls and groans followed. He relaxed.

* * *

Meryl held on to the back of Milly's coat as the taller girl waded through the press of people. Despite the dust blown up by the wind, they were packed into the main street in front of the town hall. On the top of the building opposite the town hall a ragged line of men with a miscellany of shot guns and semi automatics stood facing the uniformed line of Terran's who stood with their blasters on top of the town hall.

"Meryl!" Milly whispered as she swung the camera and focused it on a tall familiar figure in the ragged line of gunmen. Red coat tails twitched in the wind. Meryl smiled, then her face froze. Beside Vash, stood a stunningly beautiful blonde woman, and he had his arm around her. She clenched her fists and ground her teeth, then looked for something to throw at him. Would an unwieldy unevenly weighted thing like a microphone reach him at this distance? What did he think he was doing? In the middle of a gunfight? Where were his priorities?

"Meryl!"

Milly's tone was enough to bring her out of her fury and back to her senses. The Terran's had raised their blasters.

"Stop!"

The woman pushed Vash away as he had tried to tuck her behind himself.

"I am Louisa Swanson, the mayor's daughter." She called across to the line of Terran's.

Meryl marveled: the girl spoke with a Terran accent. A pudgy man with white hair elbowed his way through the uniformed line and stared in horror across the street.

"Lower your weapons!" He ordered. The mayor too was Terran. The Earth Federation Peace Force soldiers reluctantly obeyed.

"Father," she called out. "I have come here to show you that I am not held against my will. I chose to go to Nathanial."

"You will return home, Louisa!" He ordered.

"I will not!" She said and Meryl tried not to laugh as she stamped her foot. "Nathanial and I love each other, father, and we will be together. There, now the whole town knows. You tell the Peace Force to back off and leave him alone."

The mayor went first white, then red then white again.

"Louisa, if your mother were alive…"

"Then we would be stuck back on earth and never have seen this planet. Father I am glad we crashed here. I have met Nathanial and we have a future together here on this dusty rock. I love this dusty rock, father." She wiped away a tear. "Can't you love it just for me?"

Meryl marveled at the melodrama, the woman could cry on cue, a talent she detested. It was almost as bad as being able to blush on cue, the lifestyle one lived to have to cultivate such talents was as foreign to her as the dark side of the moons. Vash, she noticed sourly, was drinking it in, with copious tears of his own.

The mayor sighed.

"If you love him so much to bring my entire town to a standstill, then I suppose I must meet my future son in law." He said regretfully.

Louisa gave a gasp of pleasure and placed both hands over her curvaceous bust.

"Thank you father, I love you father."

The Mayor turned and stepped back from the wall.

"That man in red next to her, shoot him."

Meryl's scream was lost in the explosion of gunfire. Vash vanished. She and Milly forced their way through the crowd as people fought to get out of the street. They made it to the building where the gang was, before gunfire sent them scuttling along the nearest alley.

"In here!" Meryl hauled a door open and they both dived in, and Meryl hauled the latch closed behind them. They were in darkness and gunfire thundered loudly outside.

Milly adjusted something on the camera and a bright light came on. They were at the bottom of a stair well. Milly glanced up it questioningly and Meryl nodded, there was nowhere else to go.

They came out on a passage at the second floor and Milly turned the light off as they emerged into a sunlit passage. Meryl heard the windows smash as bullets tore through them. Gunfire was returned from the roof and shouts and yells of the wounded floated up. They hurried along the passage as they heard voices. They found half of the group that had been on the roof, now in a lower room. Vash was among them, trying to look out of the window and having an argument with Louisa at the same time.

"It's just a scratch!" He pushed her away from trying to open his coat. "I can handle it. Stay out of sight!"

Meryl gasped as she saw fresh blood seeping down the side of his coat.

"It will take just a moment!" Louisa gasped, anxiously.

Vash turned, took aim and fired his gun. One of the Terran's dropped his blaster and ducked to go after it as a rocket soared through the space where his head had been. Meryl and Milly stood in the door filming silently.

Louisa was proving to be more tenacious than most ladies.

"Mister gunman, I am a trained nurse." She informed Vash in an angry tone. "Whether you possess the healing powers of plant or not, you need that wound cleaned and stitched."

Vash turned around frantically to find someone to foist her on. He saw them and gaped at them in horror. All Meryl could see was that he wanted them a thousand isles away.

"What are you doing here?" Louisa gasped, forgetting Vash and forgetting she should stay clear of the window.

Vash gave a ragged gasp of horror and flung himself at her, he caught two bullets across the shoulder as he landed on top of Louisa and tumbled against the wall.

"What was that for?" Louisa demanded, pushing him off, then gave a soft cry as Vash sat up shallowly gasping for breath. His eyes were slightly glassy from pain and he frowned with a great effort to focus. His left arm hung limp at his side.

"Meryl, get her to an inner room." He gasped; she could not take the look of pleading from those green eyes and say no. He had said her name.

"Watch out!" As one the gunmen at the windows flung themselves backwards. Milly darted into the passage, and Meryl felt her partner grab her by the collar and drag her out of the room as the shell hit. The concussion was so loud Meryl could only hear her ears ringing as the building collapsed around them. It still rang when the shaking had stopped. Half the roof had fallen in and she and Milly could see blue sky where the stood in the passage, and except for a few bruises to their arms when chunks or mortar had separated from the ceiling, they were fine.

Vash! She stumbled into the room and found several stunned gunmen lying sprawled out on the floor. One was dead, the ceiling had collapsed on him, Meryl looked away as her stomach turned at the sight of pooling blood. She turned frantically to Vash who was lying prone, unmoving with his head ducked down, and his elbows and arms locked protectively around Louisa. She flinched, then gave a stifled sob.

"He, he's dead!" Louisa panicked, and roughly shoved him off her. Vash fell limply to the side, his head thumping against the debris strewn floor. She scrambled away from him, hyperventilating and shaking. The world went oddly blank for Meryl. She darted over and felt for his pulse. It seemed to take forever for her to find his jugular, but the pulse was there.

"He's just unconscious!" She snapped at the hysterical woman.

She glanced over the road; someone had just reloaded the rocket launcher. She turned to the men who were dazedly picking themselves up.

"We've got to get out of here! Move!"

She did not know where she found the strength to drag Vash's full weight, but she made it to the passage way and out onto the landing of the stair well. The gunmen followed them, one leading Louisa solicitously. The woman was still sobbing hysterically. Meryl settled Vash on the floor then marched over and slapped her through the face.

Louisa's eyes bugged out as if no one had ever dared to hit her before, and by the reactions of the men, there was a good reason for this. Meryl ignored the sudden multitude of gun barrels.

"Get it together!" She snapped at her. "You are the only one who can get us out of this mess. Now we're going to put this live over the airwaves, and ask for a cessation of hostilities."

The second rocket hit, and they dove to one side of the landing as the roof fell in over the stairs. They were pinned.

Milly switched the camera to a live feed, and Meryl sincerely hoped that NLBC would not cut them off the airwaves.

"This is Meryl Stryfe and we come to you in a building under siege. Our hero defended his lady to the last, but it is up to her to speak. Will we get out of this alive or not?"

Meryl handed the microphone to Louisa. The woman made her teeth itch, it seemed melodrama was infectious.

Louisa stared dramatically at Vash lying on the floor, he looked worse as Meryl could see the whites through his semi open eyes. She felt her breath catch; blood was beginning to pool under his shoulder. She cursed to herself and grabbed the small medical supply pack she always carried with her and waved to one of the gunmen to help her turn him onto his side. Stupid man was sticky with blood. She turned around to find everyone watching her, including Louisa, who for all her claims at being a nurse was clutching her skirts and looking faint.

"Well get on with it!" She snapped at the girl. "Get them to stop firing shells at us! Milly, make her talk!"

"Ah, ah." Louisa burst into sobs.

Meryl stood up to slap her, but one of the gunmen caught her hand. She then realized that it was covered in blood. She gave the man a meaningful glare and he released her hand and went over and hugged Louisa around the shoulders.

"Come on, the world is watching you now, Miss Swinson."

Meryl could faintly hear Louisa sniffle out her plea, while she hastily worked on Vash. He wore body armor and his thick coat, the torn edges of which was now seeping some kind of coolant as it froze her fingertips to touch it. Just wonderful, the last thing she needed was extra contaminants. The best she could do for now was to wad a pad and apply pressure to the wound. She dumped disinfectant all over the gauze and reached down the neck of his coat to wedge it between the tight fitting armor and his skin. The shoulder wounds were nasty, the bullets were still in there, but she had stopped the bleeding for now. She padded the graze on his ribs with gauze and tape through the tear in his coat. She would give him that privacy around the camera, at the very least, he did not want it generally known how scarred he was.

They waited. She worried as she sat beside Vash; he was beginning to go into shock. How had it worked out like this? He always managed to weasel out of it somehow.

"Ow."

She almost screamed as he spoke, she was so startled.

Everyone crowded around him as he dazedly gazed up at the faces above him.

"Not dead, mmh?" He smiled. His eyes were clear now.

"Not for lack of trying." Meryl grouched at him.

He tired to move.

"Don't." She pressed him back down.

"Ow." He breathed through clenched teeth.

Louisa hurried over and crouched down beside him.

"You saved my life!" She breathed, placing a hand dramatically on her bosom.

"Mmh?" He murmured dazedly.

Then to the shock of everyone there, she leaned over and kissed him. Vash gave a sigh of utter contentment and lay smiling with his eyes closed.

Meryl did not know who she wanted to pound more, the dramatic leading lady or the pathetic lead male.

"He saved me when bullets broke the window and would have hit my heart, had he not leaped in their path." Louisa declaimed. "Then he threw himself over me when the first mortar hit! I would surely have been dead, were it not for this brave gunman. Father, surely you see, you owe him so much. Lift this siege and give us your word you will let him walk free from this town unharmed."

Meryl watched Vash. She kept her eyes on his face, if she did anything else they would see what a strain it was to keep from gagging at the cloying melodrama.

The answer was soon forthcoming. There was a crackling sound and over the town's loud speakers came a voice.

"Louisa Swinson, this is Nathanial."

"Oh my love!" Louisa put both hands to her heart.

Behind her, Meryl watched Vash open one eye, gaze sadly at Louisa for not being able to capture her heart, then tears leaked as he smiled happily at the reunion.

"Louisa, we are sending men in to help you. The Earth Federation Peace Force has been stood down at the outskirts of the city. We have given Vash the Stampede twelve hours amnesty in this town."

Vash clenched his fist and a smile tugged at his face.

"Stay there, my love, we will rescue you." Louisa called longingly at the camera.

Vash, Meryl reflected, could certainly ham it up when he wished. He let them load him onto the stretcher and carry him through the cheering crowd to the hospital. Here Milly was politely asked to wait, but they insisted Meryl go with him. She was puzzled by this, until she was offered a bed beside Vash's and the nurse came up to her to ask her what her injuries were.

"It's all his blood!" She explained.

They did not believe her until they had insisted that she change from her clothes into a hospital gown, and after being allowed a brief shower, examined her.

"You were very lucky!" The young nurse exclaimed. "I saw them fire that shell at the insurance building."

The insurance building? Meryl felt her stomach twist; she had been inside the town's Bernadelli offices without knowing? She nodded, the nurse expected some sort of response.

"I'll call your friend; she can organize fresh clothing for you. I suppose we should sign Vash's things over to you until he comes out of surgery."

"Uh, yes?" Meryl said helplessly.

The nurse moved off and Meryl sat back down on the bed realizing then just how lonely Vash's life was. He had friends, and he had family, even if no one knew where Knives was, but no one close to him. Somehow, it seemed that no one could survive that. It stuck like a lump in her throat; she breathed steadily trying to control her emotions.

"Meryl!" Milly hurried over to her and dumped the camera onto the bed. Meryl made sure that it was definitely off before grabbing Milly and bursting into tears.

They sat together on the visitor's bench, waiting anxiously for news of how the surgery had gone. The suns had just set when the doctor came through to call them. He took them through to the post surgery ward.

"He is responding very well, it's extraordinary how quickly a plant heals, more so because he has the same physiology as a human."

"He's a person same as us." Meryl interjected.

"Oh, don't mistake my meaning." The doctor assured her. "But I must admit to a bit of professional curiosity with regards to the differences."

They looked in around the curtain and found Vash sitting up in bed, flexing his prosthetic hand tentatively. It had been that shoulder that had been shot. His eyes lit up when he saw them.

"No camera?" He asked softly.

"No." Milly assured him.

"And no audio?"

"No." Meryl grinned.

"It's good to see you again, Mister Vash." Milly said.

He smiled then.

"It is always good to see old friends."

* * *

"Twelve hours?" Vash slung his duffle bag over his good shoulder and winced slightly. "Not much time to give a man to recover."

"I offered to carry your bag for you." Meryl reminded him from where she sat on top of her tomas.

"And I declined." He smiled infuriatingly at her. He turned back to Milly as she rode out to join them; she had a large bag of puddings sticking out of her saddle pack and a deluxe box of doughnuts.

"What's this?" Vash asked half swooning in delight. "All for me?" He snatched the box from Milly and had wolfed down four, before Milly reached out and put a hand on top of the box. Somehow, that stilled his rapid movements.

"You have to share them with Meryl." She said. "Or I will take out my camera and film us before we reach the next town."

Vash stood with a doughnut halfway to his mouth and stared after Milly as she rode out of town. Meryl suddenly felt acutely embarrassed. Somehow, being told to share them with Vash made it intimate. That was the last thing she wanted on her mind.

"Er, you can have them all!" She muttered, and booted her tomas after Milly's.

Vash bit into the doughnut, adjusted his grip on the bag and the box, and walked after them. Why had the short one suddenly blushed such a flame red over doughnuts? He had a number of shrewd guesses, none of which he particularly cared to entertain. What was it that the big girl had said? He had to share. They were fresh and lightly sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon, and this one he ate now was even warm. He sighed and made a decision, he would keep four for her so she could eat them at their next stop. He hoped she could only guess at the sacrifice.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Chapter 6**_

The night chill still lay on the desert as Milly poured the coffee and they sat around the fire waking up and discussing the next town. Towns always needed a discussion, as it was then that Milly and Meryl would take the camera out. Vash, they had discovered, loved acting, but hated the camera.

"I don't mind you filming me." He explained as they walked along the road, the morning sunlight making their shadows ripple out in ribbons along the road ahead of them. Meryl and Milly walked alongside Vash, leading their tomas's by the reigns.

"In fact if you still had that van, then we could get our heads together, hire some town's folk and act out a few scenarios to keep those people at NLBC happy."

"Whose fault is that exactly?" Meryl snapped at him.

"Ooh," he raised his hands. "Just mentioning it." He gave a mournful pout. "What I don't like is how they edit what actually happened into some sort of dramatic saga, and cut all my lines about love and peace."

Milly and Meryl glanced at each other.

"You've been watching it?" Meryl said incredulously. She had been right all along.

He blinked at them.

"Of course I have!" He exclaimed. "Haven't you?"

"No. We don't have access to a TV." Milly explained the obvious.

"Didn't you want to see me?" He actually sounded disappointed.

Meryl was amazed.

"Of course we wanted to see you, you broom headed idiot. But we wanted to see you," she poked him in the ribs, "the real you, not some screen image of you."

He smiled slightly and reached out and put an arm around each of them.

"I am lucky I have true friends."

And, for a while, the world was just perfect.

* * *

Region around May City

It was nearly noon when they walked into the town; most people had retreated to the shade of the verandas or were wetting their throats at the saloon. Meryl was looking around for a boarding house, as the Saloon did not look as though it rented any accommodation. She then saw the wanted poster tacked onto the wall outside the Saloon. She hopped off the tomas, handed the reins to Milly and went to tug the poster off the wall. Several people looked up from their siesta to watch her walk back to her tomas. A rake thin elderly man put his hat back on his head, revealing a sheriffs star on his chest. Meryl rejoined Milly several yarz down the street. Vash was nowhere in sight.

"Where did he go?" Meryl asked, worriedly.

"Mhh, heee." Vash called with his mouth full. He waved from the corner shop where there was a pretty young girl making doughnuts. Meryl wondered if he would ever leave with such a perfect combination. She clambered into her saddle and looked at the poster.

"Wanted dead or alive, Willa Alvarez, Rogue Plant. Wanted for murder, arson and theft. $$ 20 billion." The photo was of a young woman, with ash blond hair and lustrous blue eyes.

Milly took the poster and they both glanced at Vash who was carrying a large packet of doughnuts and singing to himself.

"You know," Meryl said, aggravated, "those Terran's are cheapskates. Twenty billion?"

She regarded Vash who had a cool sixty on his head, and somehow kept it. He glanced at the poster.

"For all their new technology, that is all the Terran's have." Vash said as he munched a doughnut. "They haven't yet learned to live off the land like us. They will, in time." He sounded sad as he said that, then suddenly his smile was radiant. "Where do you think we'll find her?"

Meryl smiled, she had had the same idea earlier, and now that it was Vash's idea, they could film him at it.

"If I were a plant," Milly said thoughtfully, "I would hide among people and pretend I wasn't."

"I'd like to meet another plant." Vash mused as he took the poster. "Willa Alvarez." He grinned up at them and straightened with a charming smile. "Do you think she'd like me?"

Meryl sighed; she should have seen that coming.

She turned as she heard a click of a disengaged safety mechanism. The rake thin sheriff now held a blunderbuss in his hands.

"Hey, I thought I recognised you." He called to Meryl. "You're with that Stampede fellow. Put your hands up nice and slow. You're under arrest."

"Meryl!" Milly moaned, as there were other clicks all around the town.

"Run away!" Vash led by example.

"I'm with 'that Stampede fellow.'" She complained as they walked their tomas's behind the rocks, beyond the outskirts of town, following Vash as he scouted ahead. "Since when did I get caught up in your bounty hunt?"

"As I recall, you volunteered." He flashed a grin at her, and then pulled himself into a pose. "I am Meryl Stryfe of NLBC, Hunting the Humanoid Typhoon..."

He said it her intonation and accent.

She glowered at him.

"Scary!"

.

That night, in the lee of a rock, Meryl slept fitfully. It seemed that each time she turned over only five minutes had past. She watched as Milly woke Vash for his watch and closed her eyes, knowing she would have to take the next, but she restlessly woke when she turned again. Now tucked in her blankets, Milly was breathing the slow breaths of sleep.

She glared across at Vash as he sat near the fire with a piece of paper in his hand. She grimaced in disgust; he was ogling at that wanted poster again. Did he not know a plant was likely to give him more than a slap across the face? She felt panic overtake her, why had she even thought that! Vash shifted and the paper caught her eye. It was a newspaper he held, not the wanted poster. She relaxed in relief. She squinted but could not make out what it said in the dark. She reached into her pack she had beside her bed and fished out her binoculars. She peered through them. He had the paper at the wrong angle; she tried to focus, then, there. He shifted where he sat and she could see what the headline said. "Millions Knives sighted in December."

It came like a blow to her stomach. She lay back down and slipped her binoculars under her blankets. Oh. So, that was why he was headed west. He was looking for his brother again. She gazed at his profile against the moonlit sky, all her frustration at his idiotic games forgotten. That was his way of trying to forget his responsibilities until he absolutely had to face them. She settled down and closed her eyes. She kept forgetting his strange kindness, he refused to burden others with problems too big for them to handle. He was being kind to allow them to film him. It was a huge inconvenience to him, but he allowed it. She blinked as tears formed in her eyes. Whenever she remembered the greatness of his heart, she always wanted to hug him. Only he would completely get the wrong idea about that. She drifted off trying to think of some way that she could thank him he would sincerely appreciate.

Perhaps now was the time. She had not wanted to do this while following him with a camera. She had wanted to do this when she was sure he was a friend. But they were near enough and she hoped he would be grateful. She had prudently directed them away from major towns. That poster was troublesome!

.

"Hey Vash." She called as she slouched against the wall of his room above the village's only saloon. They had skirted May City but had had to stop at villages nearby for supplies.  
His eyes flickered to her coat and then sought out Milly's camera. They were in a village; he expected them to be filming.

"Don't worry, no recording today."

He grinned with happiness.

"Milly and I thought you would like to see something."

"What?" He asked brightly.

"I think it's best we keep it a surprise. C'mon."

"Something edible I hope." He followed her out of the room with enthusiasm. Meryl rolled her eyes, he had just _finished_ breakfast!

"No, but we can stop at the doughnut stand on the way out."

Meryl walked beside Vash as they left the small village. It was a farming community who had managed to make the surrounding lands arable despite there being no geoplant. There was one power plant that supported them, and it had been thrown from a crashed ship some iles away. Vash munched at his doughnuts as Milly drove up with a hired car.

"We're going far?" Vash asked, surprised.

"Not too far." Meryl explained as he claimed shotgun.

They drove out into the desert. The road was in bad shape and was too narrow with drifts of sand across it. They had to get out and dig their way through a few times. It then became clear that they had to stop before the road became impassable. They continued on foot for five minutes, until they arrived at the edge of a pit.

"A crashed ship!" Vash gasped and stood in his chair as Milly drove along the deep long groove in the ground.

He glanced back to the village in the distance.

"Why has no one claimed it?"

"They have, but the quick sand in the area makes it unsuitable for building on. They built this road in and out so they could plunder the place, but according to local superstition, this place is haunted. So, this ship is almost intact. We thought you'd like to see it."

They scrambled down the rough path that was all that was left of the road down to the ship. It had been almost completely covered with sand drifts. They reached a place where a ramp had been built up into the ship. Vash walked on ahead of them, grinning. The ramp lead up into a service passage, and Vash, instead of heading further into the bowls of the ship, headed for a ladder that was bolted to the wall. He shimmied up it and they followed him to an airlock. He tapped a code in and to his astonishment the pad flickered into life and opened.

"It still has its power plants!" He said with excitement.

"Yes." Meryl said softly. "They have no way of extracting them, or using them."

"Let's go and see!" He said, pulling the door open with a grunt.

They wandered down the passages; occasionally Vash would open a door and peer in. Mostly they were storage rooms, but these were empty.

"The looters got this far." Vash remarked.

He paused and frowned.

"Let's go that way." He pointed down a passage as they hit a crossroads. They trooped after him and he seemed to slip into his own world, as he picked up the pace to a fast walk. They arrived at another door and Vash pushed at it tentatively and peered in. Lights came on as they entered a large glass chamber. Vash gave a sigh, and Meryl and Milly a gasp as they walked in. Their breath formed clouds as they approached the glass window on the far side of the chamber. Here they could look out over the cold sleep chambers.

Vash stood at the window with his hands in his pockets, silently looking down at the rows and rows of tubes all around him. The far end of the cold sleep chamber was a mess of debris and broken glass, but the nearer end where they stood was intact.

"There's no one in the pods." Milly remarked, disappointed.

"But they don't look damaged." Meryl pointed out.

"No." Vash said quietly. "They must have woken the people sometime in the past, they were probably been integrated into the local population years ago." He smiled. "So some people survived." He turned quickly then. "There should be some sort of ships log, if we can get the control room working."

They hurried down passages, and then without warning Vash stopped dead. Milly almost ran into him and had to throw herself to the side and skip to a stop.

"Mister Vash?" Milly asked, her voice trailing off. Vash's face was white and his eyes stared ahead of him in stunned horror.

"You said this ship was haunted." He breathed.

Meryl felt the shivers go up her spine.

"Vash, this is no time to be kidding around!"

"Who told you it was haunted?" He asked in a steady voice that was tinged with real fear.

Meryl drew her derringer and glanced around.

"The owner of the saloon we're staying in." Milly said. "He says they charge a hundred double dollars a head to take a tour of this ship at midnight to see ghosts."

"There are no such things as ghosts." Meryl said stubbornly and twitchily looked around for what Vash could see.

Vash was staring down a passage to their left, his eyes fixed on a spot as if he could actually see something.

"Vash." She said quietly, trying to draw him out of himself.

"Milly, Meryl?"

"Yes."

"Can you find your way back off this ship?"

"Yes." Milly nodded.

"Please leave."

"What about you, Mister Vash?" Milly said, grabbing Meryl's arm when she opened her mouth to protest.

"We'll wait for you in the car." Milly said.

Vash did not respond.

.

They did not wait in the car, which was at the top of a steep climb in the midday sun. They waited on the side of the ramp in the shade of the ship.

"Do you think he can see ghosts?" Milly asked.

Meryl shuddered.

"I don't think it is a ghost, Milly. Though given the reports we discovered on this place, I'm not surprised the entire ship is not crawling with them."

"Why didn't you tell him, Miss Meryl?"

She looked up at Milly silently asking _how_ anyone could tell him _that_.

"What if we're mistaken?" Milly asked, wringing her hands.

"I don't think we are." Meryl said softly. "Rescue and Restoration have one 'William Conrad, aka Count Velasquez' on their listings as one of the people they woke from cold sleep on this ship. He was the plant engineer Knives was supposed to have killed. Only, he recruited him."

"And then killed him." Milly said brightly.

"Yes he did. Later." Meryl agreed. "This was the ship he arrived on, only..."

Meryl took a paper out of her pocket. It was headed "Federal Intelligence: Top Secret."

"Where did you get that?" Milly asked, taking the paper and looking at the list of names.

"I've had it for ages. Bernadelli helped the Rescue and Restoration out with insurance, and as this ranked as dangerous, I was drafted to help. They were trying to keep looters out of the ships they had unearthed several years back. I was new, only six months on the job, when I assisted Inspector Moule on this case. He made me type up all the details and gave me this to file. It's the manifest listing the ship's crew. I only copied it because I recognised the name William Conrad as being the real name of Count Velasquez who Vash supposedly murdered in July."

"So you were hunting all the way Vash back then?" Milly grinned.

"Yes." Meryl did not feel up to explaining her complex reasons. "And then when we met him, everything changed. He wasn't a murderer, and Knives framed him. It was a busy time for us. But when I realised we were going to pass through this town, I thought the opportunity too good to miss. I thought Vash would like to see the ship, and the manifest. Only when I dug it out this morning, I saw that name on the fourth column."

She pointed.

"Rem Saverem." Milly read out loud, then gasped. "You thought she might still be here?"

"No. William Conrad put in a request to seek her out, but they found a skeleton in the pilot's chair that was hers. Killed on impact by the injuries her bones show. She managed to save a few on board though."

"So this was his home." Milly marvelled.

"Yup."

"Why did he not want to show us around then?" Milly murmured, hurt.

"It's hard returning home when all that remains is a wreck and aching memories of the people you once loved." Meryl said, staring blankly into the distance.

Milly was silent.

"Sometimes it helps to put the memories to rest." Meryl said quietly. "I thought it might help him."

A soft gasp behind them made them turn. Vash stood there, carrying what looked like a body wound in an ancient surgical blanket. There was an almost overwhelming stink of formaldehyde. He blinked at them in confusion, frozen to the spot.

"Vash?" Meryl got to her feet, but did not approach him.

"Do you want us to find a spade so we can dig a grave, Mister Vash?" Milly asked.

"Ah." He seemed startled. "Ah, yes."

"We'll have to go back to the village. Miss Meryl can sit with you."

Meryl turned to Milly questioningly and Milly shot her a look.

"Now, don't you leave him alone, Miss Meryl." She mouthed and jogged off into the harsh sunlight.

Meryl did not know what to do. Vash just stood there holding the body, his face pale, his eyes red. He had known this person. Yet, the ship was clear of bodies. Not even the broken sleep canisters had skeletons in them.

"Vash?"

He turned from watching Milly run up the sand path.

"Do you want to choose a gravesite?" She had wanted to ask who the person was, but she had never seen him look so bad.

He looked down at the body and drew it closer to himself. She was astonished, and insatiably curious, who was this person, as it was definitely not Rem. As far as she had been able to work out, she had been buried in the mass grave many years before the Rescue and Restoration had called in Bernadelli.

By the time Milly had returned, she had managed to coax Vash across to one side of the ship. From there one could see down the whole length of the valley the ship had gorged into the earth. Two of the moons hung faintly in the afternoon sky, just visible because of the dip in the ground.

"I got a spade and a large rock is in the car for a grave marker. Mister Vash, you'll have to help us get it out so we can roll it down here." Milly jammed the spade into the packed earth and winced; she turned and looked up the valley. "This is a beautiful place."

It took Vash nearly half the night to dig the grave. He refused to let them help him, even when he was clearly shaking with exhaustion. Milly gave up asking him to help with the rock and she and Meryl tipped it out of the car using a crowbar they found in the back and rolled it all the way down to where Vash was. They fetched food and a lamp from the saloon and sat there watching him attack the packed earth until he had felt the grave deep enough. He said nothing as he lifted the body then jumped back down into the hole and lowered it gently to rest on the ground. He pulled himself out again and began refilling the grave with the same determination. Quarter to midnight he rolled the rock across to the grave and set it as a headstone, then lightly ran his forefinger over the stone as if he were writing. He straightened and glanced up at the skies for a long moment. From such stillness he suddenly returned to his energetic pace, he picked up the spade and his coat he had shucked during his exertions. He glanced at them as if to say to follow then walked up the path. Meryl and Milly caught up to him as he clambered into the car.

"Mister Vash, who was that?" Milly asked as they drove down the road back to the village.

Vash only answered with a slight shake of his head and Milly did not ask again. He went straight to his room and closed the door on them. They looked at each other.

"I want to see what he wrote on that grave stone." Meryl murmured as they headed down to the car they would return in the morning.

"I'm not going at midnight!" Milly shuddered.

"Tomorrow, then. Early."


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

The first light of dawn found them down at the gravesite. Milly shone a torch across the stone.

"Tessla, you are loved. Wars were fought in your name. Life is lived in your name. Be at Peace, you are avenged."

"Are you sure Mister Vash wrote that?"

"You saw the same as I."

"Miss Meryl, _who_ was Tessla? I've only heard Mister Vash mention Rem."

"If I knew I wouldn't have spent the night tossing and turning and dreaming about possibilities." Meryl said exhaustedly.

"But it's so angry!" Milly said, upset. "Mister Vash isn't like that."

"He buries his heart deep. How are we to know what he does not want us to see?"

They stood in silence.

"Miss Meryl."

"Mmh?"

"We've been with Vash for years, why do we know him so little?"

Meryl laughed.

"We've been alive for a seventh of his life, and known him for a fifteenth; we can't expect to know everything."

"Miss Meryl?"

"Yeah?"

"What happened to Tessla?"

"I have no idea." She murmured, but she would not stop until she had found out. "But the name is oddly familiar. The old Bernadelli vaults might have something. When we pass through December, we'll do some snooping."

A week had passed since they had found the poster of the rogue plant Willa Velasques. Meryl heartily wished that Vash had never seen it. He took it out every time they stopped to stare at the picture. On top of that, the only respite they had had from bounty hunters had been in the tiny farming village. Having been chased across the desert for three days by some particularly persistent bounty hunters, they decided to avoid towns for a while, sending Milly in if they needed supplies. Being Vash's recognised associate had severe disadvantages, but that was outweighed, she felt, by being allowed to spend time with him. Meryl spent her night watches shivering in the cold air and worrying about Knives. It was all an extrapolation anyway, and Vash had not seen fit to share it with them so should she tell Milly? She peered around at the quiet empty night, the shadows becoming monsters at the corners of her eyes. If anything, it helped keep her awake during the watches.

* * *

Ashland Town

It was at the end of that long week, that they arrived at the next town. They were all travel worn, dirty and in need of a bath, a drink and some sleep, not necessarily in that order. They checked the wall of the post office. Meryl was relieved not to see their posters, but heartily disgruntled to find Willa Vilasques's face reminding Vash she existed.

It was Vash who noticed the difference first. Meryl was smiling at how peaceful the town was, when Vash darted off across the street. She watched as Milly hoisted the camera onto her shoulder and began filming. Meryl dutifully provided the commentary as they trotted after Vash, who darted from building to building, knocking on doors and peering into houses. He turned back to them with an expression of horror.

"There is no one here." He breathed his eyes wide, his expression filled with a panic she had seen once before. Knives had emptied cities like this. Their eyes locked and she knew that he was thinking the same thing.

Suddenly the crack of a gun went off and Vash dove to the side.

"Get out of here!" He bellowed at them and sprinted back the way they had come, though he swerved off and took a side alley.

Milly turned her tomas with her knees, and went after him. Meryl could only marvel at her mastery of riding and clung to the pommel of her saddle as her tomas followed her friends. They eventually slowed as they wandered through the maze of empty streets. They had lost Vash. She had been right; he had allowed them to film him.

Milly lowered the camera.

"What do we do Meryl?" She murmured. "This place reminds me of the old days, when those bad men were after Mister Vash."

Meryl told Milly about the article, hoping against hope her theory was wrong.

"You think it might be Mister Knives?" Milly worried.

"I don't know." Meryl shrugged, disheartened. "And I don't know how to ask him."

"If we ever see him again." Milly whispered, frightened.

Meryl did not know how to comfort her friend; Wolfwood had simply gone off to fight and had never returned, who was to say Vash would not one day have the same fate? That idea crushed her heart; she blinked rapidly to get rid of tears.

"Well, we can do better than being scared girls crying!" She declared. "We've got to help Vash somehow."

Vash sprinted through the streets, circling around, the shot had come from a building a block away from the main street and he hoped to reach it before the sniper changed his location. When he stopped to check at a corner, he realized that he had lost the girls. He breathed out a sigh, perhaps it was for the best. He glanced around the corner and found a group of citizens crouched with their backs to him, watching the main road.

Time to test if it was his bounty, or just an odd paranoia of strangers.

"Hello!" He called to them with a disarming grin.

"Who are you?" They demanded, raising their guns, but not firing just yet.

"I'm just passing through." He said, holding his hands up. "This is a mighty odd way to greet people."

They lowered their guns.

"You'd also greet people like this if you'd had Terrans gun down innocent people in the streets."

"What?" He asked, genuinely interested and horrified.

"She was nothing to them, and they shot her in cold blood." Their spokesman said anguished.

One of the other men tilted his head and frowned at him.

"Hey, aren't you that guy with …"

"Later!" Vash called and sprinted away before the man could finish his sentence.

He leaned against another wall, watching a group of four women, staking out a stretch of road from the shelter of the house. He leaned in at the window, startling them. A bullet nearly trimmed his hair. He ducked.

"Hey!"

"Who was that?"

"Just me, I'm new in town, is that what you do to strangers?" He asked, in a hurt tone.

Three of the women peered down at him. A young girl looked over the ledge too, but was protectively pulled back.

"I was talking to some others," he said, polishing his hurt innocent expression, "but our conversation was interrupted. Some girl got shot?"

The women regarded him with suspicious stares. The fourth was still staking out the road.

"You picked a bad time to come here, stranger." One of the women spoke to him while the others went back to their posts. He stood up and leaned against the wall.

"Two nights ago a young woman, quiet a beauty she was, came into the town. She collapsed in the middle of the main street. Well, we took her in, but she recovered after a days rest, said she was on the run. She had this wanted poster with her, with her picture and everything."

Vash had a sudden premonition then and took out the poster from his pocket.

"Yes. That's the one." She said, and then gave him a sharp look. "You a marshal?"

"Me?" He laughed incredulously. "No, I've nothing to do with the law if I can help it." He gazed at the picture. "So she's dead." Spoken aloud, the words twisted at his heart.

"Yes." The woman said softly. "The Terrans drove in that afternoon, hauled her from the house and shot her in the street, execution style. No trial, nothing. Well that started a riot here, and those Terrans turned mean, started shooting innocent folk, saying that we didn't understand what they had saved us from. It just got worse from there."

The woman peered up at him.

"You a relative of hers? She had black hair like you."

He folded the poster.

"She was my sister." He said, claiming as close a kinship as he dared match to the pain in his heart. They had missed her by only a few days. If only they had moved faster, if he had been more urgent in his search. She would not have had to die.

"You're a plant."

He blinked as her words brought him back to the present. The way she said the word 'plant' made him feel uncomfortable in his own skin, like he was some kind of demon, or worse. He was a person, like she was, like Willa had been. He held her gaze, willing her to understand this, but she closed her eyes.

"I didn't see you here, mister. Please be gone when I open my eyes."

He left silently, his heart grieving.

He found her grave in the graveyard beyond the cairns that marked the boarder of the town. It was unmarked and just covered by a mound of rocks. He inspected the other gravestones, some were wooden markers, others were expensive stone markers with names and dates carved into them. He walked out into the desert. Two hours later he returned carrying the largest rock he could. He placed it at the head of her grave then took a deep breath and very carefully felt out for that power which he had only used in moments of great destruction. It resonated weirdly and he let it go. Since his fight with Knives the use of it seemed to be less certain and slippery and even more dangerous than ever. He also knew that his black hair was linked to his failing ability to control or use what Knives had called the 'gate' of his power. He took out his knife and holding it in both hands scratched out a headstone. He was dripping with sweat by the time he finished, and his knife would be useless until he sharpened it again. "Willa Alvarez. Rest well sister. Love and Peace." He had scratched that days date onto the stone and stood up.

He looked back at the number of hidden eyes he felt watching him from the town, then opened his bag and felt around in it until his hand closed over what he had been looking for. He selected one small black seed and closed the bag again. He scooped a hole in the ground at the headstone and planted it in the dirt. Then he placed his hand on the ground near it, and clenched his fist furiously and concentrated harder than he had ever done in his life. He felt a juddering trickle of power flow into the ground then released it, shaking. He felt drained, doing it that way, instead of easily opening himself to it. He didn't dare use any more, and besides, that was all that was needed.

A small tree was now rooted over the grave. It was only four eels high, but had perhaps enough strength to survive out here in the desert if the town's folk would water it. That would be up to them.

He stood with his hands together, taking care of the prayers for the dead. His lips moved silently and tears slipped down his face. When all was complete, he slung his bag on his shoulder and walked away, headed towards the hills. He had seen smoke rising and wanted to investigate.

* * *

"Meryl! Meryl Stryfe!"

She jumped at hearing her name and looked around for who had called her. Was the town not as abandoned as she had thought? Milly pointed upwards, and they saw three woman peering over the edge of the roof.

"Is Vash the Stampede here?" One called down to her.

"Yes he is." Milly replied before Meryl could come up with a lie. "How did you guess?"

The woman conversed with each other then vanished off the roof top.

Meryl turned to Milly.

"They did not need to know that!"

"But he is here." Milly responded as the door further along the street opened.

"Come with us." The women were carrying shot guns slung over their shoulders, the youngest, a girl of perhaps fourteen carried a pistol in each hand.

They followed them through the town and then out into the desert, heading for the rocky hills.

The woman twitchily covered them as they crossed the open sand between the town and the hills then took them through a pass into a valley. It was a strange narrow crack in the ground, too small for any vehicle to ride in, and Meryl and Milly had to dismount from their tomas's to make it through.

They emerged in a sunken area of ground covered in makeshift tents, and market stalls.

"Welcome to tent town." The eldest woman said to them with a faint grimace. "This is all we have now that the Terran's have taken over the power plant."

"What happened?" Meryl asked, realizing that this was a refugee camp.

The woman led her down into the tents and showed her where she could rent a space for their tomas's, all the time explaining the events of the past few days.

"They just left her body in the sun, same like they left the bodies of our folk they gunned down. So we went at night, took the bodies and buried them. They would not even allow the priest to say the funerals by the graves, so we had to have them in memorial fashion, here."

She waved her hand bitterly at the camp.

"What was that about the terran's taking over the plant?"

"Hah!" The woman grimaced. "That was perhaps the worst, it emptied the town. We can live with fighting, but we can't live without water, and that was the first thing they cut. Fortunately they don't know about the gun runners camp here, and the cisterns that we keep full, but the water will run out by the end of the month, even with everyone on rations."

"So, by my understanding, some thugs have moved into town, requisitioned the plant and let everyone out into the desert to die."

"Yes."

Meryl turned to Milly with a particularly saintly smile.

"I think we have just discovered something the rest of the planet should know about."

* * *

Perched on his vantage point on a boulder above the canyon Vash watched as Milly and Meryl mingled with the town's folk, interviewing them. After watching several seconds of live feed, he realized they were angling to get the Terrans out of the plant by either shaming them, or inducing a riot against them. Meryl had some sparks of genius at times, but did not always take into account the potential for the loss of life.

He stashed his bag behind a rock and checked the extra ammunition in his pockets. He found the derringer and held it up. Ah Meryl. She was unarmed, he had seen that she did not carry her weapons, perhaps this was the last left of all her guns. He walked along the canyon and positioned himself above her tomas and dropped the gun. It fell perfectly among the folds of the baggage, right where she kept that microphone of hers, she would find it.

The plant housing was an elaborate set of tin sheds built over and against each other over the years. He walked right up to the door and knocked. A revolver muzzle greeted him.

"Go away you stupid natives." A man growled.

"W-why so hostile?" He asked, upset. He had yet to meet a Terran who did not want to blow his head off. Then again, most of the planet wanted to do that, so there was not much point in stereotyping.

Vash dove to the side as the gun went off.

There was silence.

"Did you hit him?"

"I don't know."

Vash slipped behind the door, it opened outwards, hiding him.

"There's no body."

"No blood either." They walked further out, looking anxiously around.

He sneaked in silently behind them.

"What was that?"

Vash ran. Bullets slammed into the wall where he had been.

He sat up in the upper gantry of the plant room. For a few seconds he smiled at the angel form of the plant within the globe. She knew he was here and he could hear her song. She was worried about the people on the dunes, concerned that the water had been cut off. Asking why. However, not in a way humans would understand it. She brought images of life and contrasted them with drought and death and intermingled water with it. He understood. He wondered if humans had realized in the creation of plants, that they had also included the desire to aid their survival. Sometimes that became twisted, as Knives had shown, to the survival of their own. But he had often pondered in his own heart the sheer depth of his desire to protect people, and wondered how much was personal conviction, and how much was an intrinsic part of his makeup. He was here, trying to help, so it did not matter either way, he could not change his heart and nor did he want to.

"Guard the plant room!"

He ducked away into a dark corner. He hastily made his way down the gantry stairs, as people thundered along the gantries themselves, then stood and pointed guns down at them. For once, it seemed, they were not looking for him. They were escorting Meryl and Milly. The girls did not look up; in fact they were gazing in some awe at the plant in the orb.

"This is the only plant we have here, girls." The man giving them the tour was saying. "None the likes of your chaotic Vash the Stampede."

Meryl turned to him with that smile on her face. Vash winced in sympathy. The man was going to get it, he did not know enough to yell 'scary' and leg it.

As much as he would have enjoyed listening to Meryl berating someone else for a change, he had something else he needed to check. He slipped out of the plant room and sneaked down the passage to the engineer's room. There were several people there, but their attention was taken by the tongue-lashing Meryl was delivering. By the smiles and incredulous expressions, they were enjoying it. He slipped over to a consol at the back of the room and checked through the system. Plant power was being diverted from the usual town maintenance productions to, to something else. Something that required almost all of its capacity.

"Who are you?"

He looked up to find three engineers staring at him.

"What are you doing? Are you with them?"

Ah, so these fellows were No Man's Land plant engineers, not Terrans.

"No." He said, them was a rather ambiguous word, after all. "But where is all this going?"

They inspected the screen.

"How did you get that up?" One sounded astonished. "You an engineer?"

Vash shrugged.

"Where is the output room?"

"Two floors down."

The three plant engineers looked up at the man standing by the window, his badge said 'chief engineer'. Vash thought he vaguely recognized him. Ah yes, he had been a small boy the last time he'd come through the town, he'd taught him to wrestle.

"I'm letting you go because I know you're our only chance at this. And if the rumors are true, and you're also a plant, then out of respect for your own race, you won't destroy this place."

Vash stood up and smiled at him, this division that they made in their minds was becoming a problem.

"It's out of love for people." He explained. "I've never considered myself not a person. We've all got to spread the love and peace."

He walked out of the room.

He found the output room guarded by ten blaster-wielding heavies. What was the fun of a blaster, he mused. It was indiscriminate in its projection and while not necessarily killing at the first detonation of force, maimed dreadfully. No, he would take a gun any time. It remained that they blocked his passage. Okay, diversion time.

"So it's through here is it?"

He froze. Meryl was striding along the passage followed by her panicked and beleaguered guide and Milly and her camera bringing up the rear with an escort of Terran marksmen. Not quite the diversion he wanted, but it would do.

There was enough milling confusion and conflicting orders, for him to slip in behind the guards as the doors were opened. Meryl had marched right in, and they had poured in after her to stop her. They seemed reluctant somehow; he then realized that the camera was filming this live. Oh man. Now he had to be careful.

He darted across to the mass of pipes that were the output tubes, then ducked under them as Meryl drew the people to the far side where the control consoles were. He wanted a terminal, and there should be one back here, there. He found another engineer hunched there. He tapped him on the shoulder.

"Not with the Terran's." He whispered.

The man's eyes lit up, and then his eyebrows shot up in recognition.

"You?" He hissed, and peered around. "It's that bad?"

"W-what's that supposed to mean?" Vash asked, hurt.

"You only pitch up with the heavies move in! So what's going on?"

"I don't know." He said honestly.

The engineer blinked at him.

Vash took the lapse in attention to scroll through the readings on the terminal.

"I didn't know you could read."

"I can't." Vash lied and grinned at the confusion on his face. "Why do they need all the stored energy?" He asked, leaning on the back of the man's chair. "It's like they're creating a battery with the power of a fusion bomb."

There was a slight flicker and the terminal's readings went back to zero, before slowly building up again.

"Whatever it is, they have finished it." The engineer said. "These are the usual maintenance figures."

Vash looked around the room. Meryl was standing there ordering the Terrans to reinstate the water and the energy supplies to the town. He would leave that to her. He had more urgent business.

"Which way to the dispatch and delivery room?"

"Through those doors." The engineer pointed. As Vash headed towards them at a run, he saw the engineer reach up and tug the fire alarm. Ah, a soul after his own heart.

* * *

The fire alarm bleared through the rooms. Meryl turned as she caught a red streak pelting across the output room as if all hells demons were after him. She ducked away from the careful herding of the engineers, and Milly followed. They were chased by the guards and guides who had taken them on a round tour of the plant. Vash shot the doors open and vanished through them. She and Milly dove straight in after him. As they did so, a terrific explosion rocked the place. She helped Milly to her feet, as debris fell from the room. The dispatch and delivery room was a warehouse, and now had several yarz of wall missing.

Outside were a mob of towns folk, all armed, all yelling and Vash was somewhere in there. The mob had breached the other doors into the plant as she could hear yelling and gunshots behind her. She and Milly watched as the uniformed Terran's sprinted out of the plant behind them, and dove for their vehicles in the warehouse and started them up and almost took out swathes of people when they drove them at full speed out into the desert.

"Oh Meryl, look!"

She had to leap up onto the railing to peer over the chaos to see Vash firing after the retreating trucks. One skidded to the side then fell on its side as it came to a halt. The others swerved around it, and tore off into the desert. He lowered his weapon. The town's folk crowded around him and he vanished among them.

When Meryl finally caught up to him, Vash was pleading and cajoling and the sheriff and his deputy were arguing with him.

"You cannot hang them!"

"You know what they did!" The deputy pointed out at the graveyard to the east of the town.

"Death for death is never the answer!" Vash protested.

Milly set up the camera and caught the entire argument on film. It was a good half an hour begging and pleading with the town's folk not to have an impromptu hanging for the captured Terrans.

The town had settled for allowing them three days water and food and instructions to walk to the next town, encouragement provided by bullets biting the dust behind their ankles.

Milly was busy filming this while Meryl caught a quiet conversation behind her, and turned to watch it out of the corner of her eye. It was an older woman whom Vash seemed to know. How did he know everyone wherever he went?

"You know, you are just like Willa."

"I am?" Vash sounded surprised, then wistful. "I wish I had met her."

"Those Terrans told us something about plants." The woman said, her voice going quiet. "They said that plants go crazy after their hair goes black."

There was silence as the woman looked up at his hair. Then Vash laughed.

"The hair doesn't change much. I've always been crazy." He declared unabashed.

The cringes and shrinking embarrassment that the town's folk felt on his behalf was amusing.

"We know." Someone muttered to titters of awkward laughter.

Meryl turned away as Vash launched into an exaggerated explanation of his zanier exploits, effectively distracting the towns folk.

The party in the Saloon that evening spread out into the streets as the whole town returned to their homes. Meryl celebrated with everyone, then dragged Milly across to the house they had rented a few streets away when she passed out with a happy smile. She put her friend to bed and went back to the saloon to look for Vash. This would be the time he would give them the slip and she was not going to allow that to happen. His drinking buddies were all still semi conscious and singing raucously.

"Where is he?" She asked, causing several to struggle to process her request.

"Vash?" One managed, perplexed.

"He was looking rather green." A waitress informed her as she walked past, rescuing beer glasses from the tables. She pointed at the back door.

Meryl rolled her eyes and went out to look. She winced, from the smell of it; this was a regular dumping ground for fluids of all kinds, but Vash was not there puking his guts out. Several others were though.

She went back through the Saloon and slowly walked back to their house. It was then that she spotted him, it could be no other, his profile was that distinctive. He was standing in the main street staring out east, the way the Terran's had gone.

She walked over to him.

"Are you leaving?"

He turned to her; he had his glasses on, and that odd serious expression on his face.

Oh no. Something very big was happening. What had she missed?

"Me, leave?" He grinned broadly. "I've got to star in my show!"

She laughed and he gave her an odd peaceful smile. As if he saw something in her that made him happy, it certainly made her feel very self-conscious.

"Thank you for my derringer." She said, turning back to town. "It smoothed negotiations."

He did not reply.

She looked about for him and found him tottering over to the side of the street to be sick. She rolled her eyes and walked off home. Why drink so much when you could not handle the drink?


	8. Chapter 8

_**Chapter 8**_

Meryl watched Vash closely over the next three weeks. Yes, something big was bothering him. She walked over as he was tying his bag in a distracted manner, his gaze caught by the eastern horizon. As he was not talking, she was direct.

"What is bothering you?" She asked.

He glanced up at her and a broad grin spread across his face.

"We have so far to go to the next town!" He exclaimed mournfully. "And we finished the last of the doughnuts yesterday!"

She gave him a steady stare.

"What?" He said blankly. "I dreamed of doughnuts last night, fresh, and tasty and when I woke I was chewing my blanket! Fegh!"

She gave it up as a lost cause. He played the game too well. He would tell her when he chose to, or would vanish to deal with it himself. The option he left her was to be the friendly companion he clearly wanted her to be. Well, she had other ideas about that. She tried to ignore the hurt she felt, if anything he felt more distant than when they had dug him out of his hiding spot at Mesa Probe Church almost six months ago.

Vash watched Meryl walk off; surprisingly she had not lectured him. She had been within a hairs breadth of it though. She knew something was up. He tied off his bag and slung it onto his shoulder. He could not keep that from her, she knew him too well, but he could keep the details and the depth of it, so she would not actively go looking for trouble. He had no clear idea of what was happening, himself but there were a group of Terran's up to something, and it involved independent plants. Also, Knives hadn't made any overtures, so the jury was still out on whether he was alive or not, and if he was alive, if he had heard or not. It made his head ache, all the possibilities, and the worst was the conclusion that he would eventually have to do something about it.

They arrived in the town, it was larger than many of the tiny settlements they had been in, and this suited him very well. He led Meryl around town, and spent extra time in the places she expected him to be. Since that silly conversation about doughnuts, she had kept her eye on him. It was becoming rather aggravating, could she not understand he wanted some time alone to think. He looked east again. Maris City was there, and he had a big choice to make. Oh man, but sometimes something so simple as writing a letter was terrifying.

He had looked up her name in the database at the post office, the plant engineer, Elizabeth. As pretty as she was, he wanted nothing to do with her, but she was the only one he could think of who might be able to answer his questions. He slid the sealed letter into the posting box and then wished with all his might that he had not. He tried to stick his hand in to get it back. Meryl had walked past the post office just then, so he slipped out behind her and had walked away, his stomach knotted with uncertainty. He had to trust that Elizabeth would not give him up. He had to hope that she had the answers.

He stared up at the skies as his fear and vulnerability drove his thoughts to the one solid comfort he had clung to all these years. Rem, would you have known what would have happened? The strange things about Knives and I? Our long lives? He took a breath and realised he had stopped in the middle of the street and was attracting stares. He walked back to the shabby hotel where they were lodging. He sat on his bed and stared blankly out of the window, though his hand clenched at his hair. What that woman had said to him in the last town had shaken him more than he had first realised. How do you face your own death? He laughed ruefully at himself. He was not afraid of death, not the instantaneous death that could happen in a fight. What he feared was the long drawn out death of potential madness. He felt his heart tighten in panic as he unwittingly recalled how easily Knives had overridden his control and loosed the fearsome power within him. That was it; he feared not being in control, and for good reason he thought morosely. He closed his eyes in defeat and rested his forehead on his arms. He knew only too well the damage he could do.

It had been a choice between contacting Luida or Elizabeth, but he had heard that the Seeds crew had contact with the Terran's, and in light of his recent discoveries, did not want to put himself on the Terran's radar. Even if it was by some inadvertent remark the crew might make about him and his questions. The nature of his questions would alert the Terran's that he was onto them, that was, if the Terran's were even up to something. He put his head in his hands. This was why he hated thinking, when a problem stuck in his mind, it would not stop worrying him.

"Aw man." He breathed. He could not wait until they arrived in the city, then the stomach clenching worry would be gone, and he could take the consequences as they fell. That would be action, he was so much better at action than thought.

Meryl watched as Vash bloodily sat around the hotel for just over an hour, then suddenly stood up and walked out. She followed him, as she had been doing all day; he had been acting exceedingly shady. He walked over to the town's community board, picked up a notice and after asking several people, was directed to a rather run down restaurant. After chatting briefly to the owner, he donned an apron and began to sweep the dining room, looking much happier than he had done all day. Meryl walked back to their rooms. He had probably been worried about money. She would have lent him some if he had only asked.

* * *

Maris City

Meryl, surprisingly, had splashed out on accommodation once they had arrived in the city. She had paid for his and Milly's accommodation. NLBC must have been impressed with the show and given her a bonus. The place was a four star hotel with baths in each room and a very convenient system of two door access to the rooms. One, the inner door to the passages down to the hotel dining room and bar, the other was a broad balcony arrangement that ran the length of the hotel; it had a flight of stairs down the side of the hotel for private access. He went to bed early that night and waited until Meryl had checked in on him, as she had been doing for the past week. He did not know how to shake her, except to either leave her or tell her the truth, neither of which he wanted. Milly had begun to notice, and had asked him with a disappointed look in her eye, what he had said to Meryl.

He listened as she returned down the hall then threw the blanket back; he had hidden fully clothed. He picked up his revolver and slipped it into its holster as he crept to the balcony door. He slipped from the room and slunk away down the street. Once out of sight of the hotel, he broke into a run across the city center. He was already late; he had not expected Meryl's intense interest.

The head offices of the Kantakle Institute loomed in the darkness, and he found his way to the side entrance Elizabeth had indicated. He knocked twice and waited, leaning against the wall. The door cracked open and Elizabeth herself peered out. She gave him a quick look, her deep green eyes lingering a moment on his face, then shot a glance up the alley.

"Come in, quick." She murmured and stepped back inside.

"That eager?" He could not help himself. She really was very pretty. The low cut dress she wore, simply invited the eye. She fidgeted with her sleeves as he stepped in. So, she was as nervous as he was, was something up, or did she not want to meet him? She pulled the heavy mechanical latch down over the door and looked up at him. Her delicate bow of a mouth pouting slightly.

"You might consider changing that coat, Vash the Stampede." She told him, coolly placing a hand on his chest and pushing him away. "It makes you very recognizable."

He smiled, that was the point.

"There are a few night watch around, but they are used to us working late. But if they see you? You do know you have the most recognizable face on the planet!"

"I'm sorry!" He said mournfully.

"Hush!" She hissed at him, and put her hand over his mouth.

He did not mind that in the slightest and shut up.

"We have to go up a floor, follow me."

He had a wonderful view of her swaying hips all the way there. He found himself wondering if Meryl would be less annoying if she wore a bustle and could sway like that. He buried that thought. If she ever knew he had even considered her in that way he'd never hear the end of it. Wow, but could that woman lecture when she was angry. Hopefully this visit would settle things, and he could relax once more.

Elizabeth was definitely nervous. She opened the door that said "Chief Engineer," and peered around the office. He could see it was hers, as it had certificates on the wall with her name on it. She let him in and closed the door behind him. She walked across to her desk and unlocked a drawer and took out the letter he had sent.

"Do you know how much this scared me when I read it?" She asked holding it out to him. He took it.

"I didn't mean to be so imposing." He apologized.

She glanced at him, bewildered.

"I did not mean I was afraid to receive a letter from you." She scolded. "I meant what you revealed in your letter. That you are on the edge of death. That your power is not entirely in your control. Vash the Stampede, I have seen with my own eyes the destruction you've wrought and now you tell me you might do it again, this time possibly catastrophically?"

He stood with his letter in his hands, gazing helplessly at her.

"I thought you might be able to give me some sort of estimate." He crumpled the letter in his fist. "I would rather not be around people when the time comes." His voice shook; he did not realize how much that idea had upset him until he tried to speak it aloud.

He raised his head when she put her hand on his shoulder.

"Vash, I am a power plant engineer. I don't have the secrets of your people that you seem to think I do."

"I just hoped…"

He fell silent as she placed a hand on his cheek. He watched her cautiously now, she trailed her fingers down his jaw, and then turned seductively.

"Come with me. There is a place we need to go."

"Right!" He beamed.

He left the Institute by the side door and Elizabeth met him in the main street. He gallantly held out his arm for her and she was a lovely warm presence beside him as they walked along. She nudged him around corners and across an open plaza. They arrived at the edge of the city at a Saloon that had seen better days. But she did not stop at the bar, instead she spoke to a young man lurking at the back door and he opened it for her. He followed her up the narrow stair to the equally narrow passage off which several doors were located. She went to the third and unlocked it. He walked in at her invitation, expecting any second for someone to ambush him, but the room was empty. In fact it had only two chairs in it. He was rather disappointed and somewhat relieved. The window was open to the street and all he could hear was the thump of the music and the chatter from the saloon down below. Elizabeth closed the door.

"I come here when I need to meet people who I cannot otherwise be seen to have contact with." She said by way of explanation, and drew the windows closed and pulled the curtain.

"I suppose that sums me up." He said sadly.

She laughed.

"No, you're so far off that radar that it doesn't matter if I'm seen with you or not. I mean it in a more local and political sense, those my company cannot be seen doing business with. Vash, that conversation we had in my office was staged. I'm not certain who to trust since the Terran's came. They have helped us in understanding lost technology, but they have their motives, as we have ours. That is simple politics. What I am worried about is that you knew enough to write me this letter. Who told you about the 'last run' and independent plants going crazy?"

"I pick up pieces here and there." He shrugged. "I know what I can feel of my power. I can piece things together."

She gazed so sadly at him that he wanted to hold her until she smiled again.

"You have two weeks to fifty years, depending on how you use your power."

He blinked. She had not just answered his question, had she?

"I'm sorry?" He had to hear it again.

"That is how long you will live, it is an estimate, of course, but it can give you an idea none the less."

"How do you know this?" He asked, feeling rather stunned and hopeful. She knew something.

She smiled and stepped back to the door and opened it.

Another woman stepped in; she was as tall as Elizabeth and wore the Terran ship uniform under her nondescript grey coat. Ah, so this was where Elizabeth had the information from, a Terran plant engineer. He felt his breath catch. She was beautiful. She had long blond hair which curled in ringlets at the tips and clear blue eyes which flickered to his face, snagged his hair and her face fell. He could not have that expression on a ladies face! He sidled over to her and put an arm around her shoulders.

"Hello..."

He then sensed it and stared at her in utter astonishment. She was not a plant engineer. She was a plant. Like him.

"Are you always so friendly in your greeting?" She asked him and pushed him away delicately.

"I warned you, he likes pretty ladies." Elizabeth said with a faint smile. "I must go, I still have work to do tonight if tomorrow is going to be anything like manageable. Please excuse me."

"Thank you Elizabeth." The woman said with her soft Terran accent. "I am in your debt."

Elizabeth smiled and then closed the door behind them.

"So I finally meet you face to face, Vash the Stampede."

"You do!" He declared resolutely.

She smiled at him.

"My name is Chronica, and the last time we met you fired at me to stop me destroying your brother. The last I saw of you, you were flying off into the sunset."

He blinked as memories came cascading through his mind. The Terran ship, she had been piloting the Terran ship. He hastily adjusted his assumptions; he was dealing with someone his equal, if not greater in strength than he was.

"As you can imagine, I have found you an intriguing subject."

"You have?" He asked in delight. "We could get married tonight!"

She gave him a cool stare.

"I've seen you fight, and I've read the reports about you. I know you are not stupid. However, perhaps you are where the ladies are concerned?"

"That's a bit low." He mumbled. He knew he would feel mortified later when he remembered this conversation.

"It was. I'm sorry." She gazed up at him. "I'm rather distracted today. You gave me a fright, that is all. I did not expect you to be in such bad shape."

"What?" He glanced down at himself. His scars were covered, and his prosthetic was in its usual leather. The coat had extra bullet holes, but that could be excused. He looked like he always did.

Chronica reached out and touched his hair.

"They've really driven you hard, making you take too much through your gate before the length of your life is up."

"Oh, that." Looking at her pale blond hair, he realized what he was seeing: her potential. She had power and life on her side.

"They estimate we can live anything up to four hundred years, but none of us has lived that long. And believe it or not, you are the eldest living independent plant on record."

Ah, yes, so that was what he was, a trail blazer. It suited him, he smiled grudgingly, he should never have expected there to be answers. Those would be for future generations, who had seen their predecessors live and die.

Chronica reached into her coat pocket and drew out a slim rectangular device. He stared at it; he hadn't seen its like since he had been with Rem on the Seeds ship. He took it from her as she held it out and activated it, amused to notice her astonishment at his technological acumen. It was a storage device, and this one in particular stored text or images. He ran his eye down the content listing and raised an eyebrow in amazement.

"It's everything we know on plant biology and life." Chronica explained softly. "The estimates I gave Elizabeth come from my deductions while reading that."

He did not know how to speak.

(Thank you.) He whispered, knowing she would be able to pick up the telepathy.

"So you have a certain command of our powers." She smiled at him.

He took a deep breath to find his calm.

"Very little." He said honestly. "Battle and defense mostly."

"Yes." She said sadly. "That is how most of us are."

He glanced at her, startled.

"Most independent plants on earth have the intellect and power required to fly destroyers. The money is good and you get to use your powers. Most take the gig."

"And the others?"

She smiled.

"Like humans, you get the oddballs. I know one plant that has spent the last fifteen years making the most intricate light sculptures. The humans love it, but they lack the perception to see her true genius, she loops them through time as well as space." She sighed softly. "But each to their own. You can keep that." She pointed at the reading tablet.

He turned it over, suddenly suspicious; he had had trouble with Terran's before.

"Why are you giving this to me?"

"I wanted to help you." She said with a slightly sad note in her voice. "It does not contain a tracking device. That would not serve my purpose."

Ah, so there was something more.

(Come with me.) She said, turning to the door.

(Where?) He asked, suddenly cautious. He did not know why, but he felt uneasy, and that usually meant trouble of the deadly kind.

She reached out and took his right hand, wrapping her fingers around his bare fingers.

(Sense it. It is not a trap.)

He felt a tingling all around him as he sensed for a moment what she felt.

"You're troubled, y-your heart is almost broken with pain, what happened?" He asked, trying to put words to what he had felt and failing miserably. Why was she not curled up in agony on the floor?

(This way.) She urged and opened the door.

He followed the woman, but could not get the sense of imminent danger out of his head. He drew his revolver as he walked, his eyes taking in the buildings and the night around him. There was no apparent threat he could see. He glanced at her as she set a lope faster than he usually ambled, but he could keep up easily with his long stride. She was self possessed and beautifully proportioned, but had an odd distant coolness which meant that for the time being he was not going to be able to get anywhere near her heart. He should not have used that line about marriage.

She reached a house that was right on the outskirts of the city and, after taking a hasty look around, knocked an intricate code on the door. A return knock answered and she unlocked the door. She slipped in and he could see two people by the far side of the room as he entered. She turned the light on as soon as he shut the door. He stepped back in astonishment and hastily holstered his revolver.

Two children stood there, dressed in trousers and shirts, with travelling coats over their clothing. He gaped at them in delight, he couldn't help himself. The children had the same blond hair and blue eyes as Chronica. They were children of plants.

"Would you look at that?" He said in wonder, crouching down so that he was at their height.

They seemed to be about eight or nine, which, as they were plants, would place their age at a year, or just shy of that. They seemed to be twins, as their faces were the same, but their hair was styled like that of a girl and the other like a boy. They watched him owlishly.

"This is the man I told you about." Chronica said and walked over to them, placing a hand on the boy's shoulder and petting the girl's hair.

The boy wrinkled his nose.

"You look like you have another twenty years at life, you better not let the Terran's catch you, they believe in involuntary euthanasia for plants with black hair. They say it is better to kill a plant than let them go crazy."

Vash blinked. That coming from a nine year old, only he wasn't, was he? He was one. Which didn't make it any better.

"I've always been crazy." He retorted, but the joke fell flat. The children simply stared at him. He tried to remember how he had been with Knives, all those years ago. Was this how Rem had felt? Bewildered? He had spent too much time around the simple intelligence of human children.

He stood up, scratching the back of his neck, searching for something to say. The children seemed to have stunned all his usually excellent one-liners out of him.

"Vash, this is Douglas, and Jasmine."

"Mom, I'm Doug." The boy grumbled.

Vash stared at her. He was surprised when she blushed slightly.

(Yes, these are my children. Born seven months ago. I am with the Terran's, if they discover that I have had children, they will confiscate them and subject them to the training they put me through. I don't think they will survive it. The only person on this planet who could hope to raise them to a semblance of a normal life is you.)

Vash choked on his own spit, he could not even find the wherewithal to put any thoughts together. He managed to burst out laughing after overcoming the shock.

Chronica walked across to him and placed a hand over his cheek, her eyes narrowing dangerously. The laughter died instantly. Gosh she looked like Meryl when she did that!

He did not expect what happened next.

(You think I ask this of you lightly?) She demanded, her voice an agonized roar in his mind. (This is the training they sent me through.)

He felt a light tickle of feathers against his cheek. Before he could pull away, he was thrown into a vortex of memories and emotion. The endless days of training, the pain, the anguish, but it was military training, that was expected. Being pushed to the limits of what she was, gate training and the pain of having to limit it. Then came the truly dreadful memories, murder and killing in the name of the Earth, and then one, tagged on at the end, her as a young girl, standing with other humans, being forced into participating in a last run of an orb plant, and how she had hidden, but held the agony for days afterwards, unable to express to the humans how sad and terrified the plant had been.

He staggered back against the wall and blinked, trying to see her, tears coursing down his face.

She lowered her hand.

He reached over and hugged her. She froze then hugged him back. She gave a little sob, and he could sense how relieved she felt that someone, after all those years, had understood. She gathered herself together swiftly after that and stepped away and wiped her eyes on the back of her hand.

"Vash, they are part human, which is all the more reason they won't survive. Take them, teach them, and know you carry the love of their mother with you. You are the only hope they have."

He felt his jaw drop. She was still on about that?

"What? Are you serious? Oh man. Do you know _anything_ of my life?" He scrubbed away the tears on his face.

"Yes, and you're the best thing that has happened to this planet." She told him fiercely.

He sensed it a second before she did.

"Get down!" He threw himself at them and shot the light bulb out at the same time.

Chronica darted to the corner of the room, drawing her blaster as gunfire shattered the window. The children dropped to the floor as he flung himself over them, feeling the bullets catch the back of his coat. They lay still, he was astonished at their discipline, then remembered that they were plants. Oh man, he thought like a human! It was too much to process now. He scrabbled over to the window and peered out. A shot zipped past where his head had been.

"Twenty on the left, seven on the right, five on the roof." He told Chronica.

"Fifty three, and coming." She murmured, her eyes closed.

He went still and let himself sense them. She was right, though they were now closing in around them, encircling them.

"We need to get out now." He ran for the back door and hauled it open as shots tore through it at the movement.

"Go with him." Chronica ordered.

"Oh no! I'm not babysitting your kids!" He grabbed her and dragged her out with him. They ran. The children kept pace gamely, they were fit, he would give them that. They also kept checking where their mother was. What was this she was trying to pull? Trying to hand over her kids like that? There were enough motherless kids in the world, had she any idea how their lives revolved around her?

They crowded around a corner of an alley and tried to work out where they should head next. Their pursuers ran past without seeing them in the darkness. He put his hand over Chronica's shoulder. She pulled away from him and stood with her back to him, peering out at the people running through the city.

(What are you not telling me?) He demanded, but tiredly and sadly. She was aching so hard he could feel it.

(They're not going to let up, Vash.) She murmured.

(Then tell me who to deliver the message to and I will make sure that they do.)

She turned around then and grabbed a fist full of his hair so hard it hurt.

"You can't!" She almost sobbed. "You don't understand. Or maybe you might. You fought your brother and look what it did to you. You don't have the strength to fight another plant. You'll die."

She released him, panting hard.

"There is always a way." He assured her, determined.

"Mom, they are closing in on us from the other end of the alley." Jasmine's voice had a faint tremor.

Oh crap, he'd forgotten the kids.

"We've got to get them to a safe house." He said, thinking of the orphanage beyond December, but that was too far.

"We've got to keep moving." She instructed them. "This way. Vash, you know this city better than I do, take the lead."

He ran. He had to curtail his usual pace to allow the children to keep up. Chronica did an excellent job covering their rear. He hated how twitchy he was trying to protect the kids and keep a look out for Terran gunmen at the same time. He had caught a blaster shot on his prosthetic arm and while it disabled the mechanisms for a while, they were slowly reawakening. As soon as he felt he had moderate control, he released the machine gun. He heard a shocked gasp from behind him, and caught a wide eyed stare from Doug before her turned and cleared a passage through for them. He stood in the street, encouraging the Terran's to keep their heads down as the little family ran across, then caught up to them again.

They ended up in another narrow alley, crowded into a doorway. He could hear Jasmine muttering unhappiness and fright into her mother's shoulder. Doug was simply peering down the alley, watching.

(Chronica, who in the world is chasing you? They're as persistent as bounty hunters.)

She looked at him. He had answered his own question.

(Why?) He felt his stomach line with lead.

(Terran politics. I'm a bad egg. Remove me and things are happier.) She said glibly.

"Do they know you have children?" He breathed, revolted that they would hunt her.

"No. And they can _never_ know." She hissed at him.

Oh man, this was getting worse by the second.

"Why did you ask me to help you? I've got this entire planet after me."

"Because you have managed to stay alive."

He stared at her in anguish. She did not understand, that was by his wits, nerve and sometimes sheer luck. He lived on a knife edge.

She reached over and ruffled his hair again. What did the woman have against his hairstyle? He must look like he wore a mop now.

Suddenly a brilliant light flashed above them. Chronica screamed and leaped out, flinging her arms above her head and the thunderous clash of the light orb she fired from what had been her hand shook the buildings.

(Go!) She screamed at him. He had to go. Gunfire could not counter that. And she was right, he could no longer summon such energy. They were fighting in the city! This was going to be worse than July had ever been, and he could not do a thing about it. He grabbed the children around the waists and ran as the plant attacking Chronica fired off another orb. She defended, nullifying it, but something was off, and it spattered energy all over the walls, destroying the buildings. Sirens began to go off.

Vash put the kids down as soon as they exited the alley, only to grab them and sprint across the road as he realized tanks were waiting for them. Shells fired after them and he ran harder. Crap! Damn that Chronica! He finally came to an exhausted halt by the far end of the city. He had lost the pursuit a few minutes back, but he had gone further just to be sure. He set the children down and crouched down to look at them. Jasmine was frowning angrily and Doug was crying.

"I'm going to take you to friends of mine." He told them, trying to be as comforting as he could. "Then I'm going back to help your mother."

"We could help." Doug wiped at his tears.

"I'm sure you could." He smiled generously.

"Don't patronize us. We know how to use our gates to call weapons grade power." Doug said firmly.

"Mom says we could burn ourselves out if we tried!" Jasmine scolded him.

"Snitch."

"I'm only doing what mom told us!" She snapped back, as tears welled in her eyes.

"That's enough." Vash stood up and clawed a hand through his now thoroughly destroyed hairstyle. This, he decided, was the time to call in the cavalry.

He unlocked the door and checked his bedroom. It was empty. He waved at the stairs and the two children hurried across and slipped in. He closed it behind him and locked it. He leaned against it and stared down at the two frightened figures in front of him. That Chronica! When he dragged her back here, he was going to tell her everything he ever felt about abandoned children.

Meryl heard Vash return. He was clearly trying to be stealthy about it, but had not succeeded. She walked over to his room and opened the door. If he was up to having a late night whiskey, she was game. She took a step inside then froze. She hastily darted into the room and slammed it shut behind her.

Vash stood by the door, his revolver in one hand, the machine gun freed from its housing in his prosthetic arm on the other. His hair was disheveled and he'd been crying. But what shocked her more were the two very dirty, blond children who had darted behind him as she had entered. They peered around him with wide blue eyes.

"Meryl." Vash said hoarsely, then holstered his revolver and reached for her. She walked over and was astonished when he put his hand on her shoulder and gripped it as if she were the only thing anchoring him in the world.

"Get the big girl. Take your weapons. Take the Tomas's, and go and hide in the desert at that last campsite we had. If I don't return after three days, I'm dead. Then take these kids to Wolfwood's orphanage."

"Vash what happened?" She asked, stunned.

"She's fighting for her life out there right now." He said his voice far away.

He squeezed her shoulder and released her.

"Go!"

He looked down at the children.

"This is Meryl Stryfe. She'll keep you safe."

He opened the door, and was gone with a single bound over the railing. The children ran out to watch him, but he was gone from sight in three seconds.


	9. Chapter 9

_**Chapter 9**_

Meryl stood blinking, unable to take in what had just happened. She ran his words through her head a few times, it still amounted to 'great danger, get out of town, oh and take the kids.' She looked down at the children.

"Are you his friend?" The girl asked, eyeing her too keenly for her liking.

"Vash? Yes, I suppose I am." She rubbed her forehead. "Who are you?"

"I am Jasmine and this is Doug. We're, er…" She glanced at her brother as her face crumpled.

"We're his kids," he said, staring at the ground, "now." He sounded heartbroken.

Meryl walked over and tucked her arm around each of them. Jasmine resisted a little, but they were soon sobbing miserably into her clothes.

She heard the patter of foot falls on the balcony outside and Milly in her pajamas, peered in through the door. Her face was all kinds of astonishment as she slipped in and closed the door behind her.

"Meryl, what happened?"

The children looked up and gave Milly a guarded stare.

"It seems Vash has been keeping secrets." She said as levelly and euphemistically as she could. She really wanted to scream to the rafters, but that would not help the situation at all.

Milly gave a soft gasp then looked hastily away, but not before Meryl caught the look of pity she was trying to hide.

"We need to pack and get out of town. We'll meet him at our last campsite."

Milly nodded and left the way she had come.

Meryl stroked Doug's head he was still sniffling.

"When did you last eat?" She asked.

"We had breakfast." Jasmine said, still hiccupping.

"I'll get you some food. Stay here, wash your faces and hands, and I'll be back."

"We don't want to be alone." Jasmine declared as her brother suddenly clung to her arm.

"Well you can't be seen around the hotel like that. Come here."

They were good kids, she supposed. They did what they were told without arguing. They even smiled when Milly presented them with a large pudding each and sat them on the side of the tomas stall while they loaded their panniers. Meryl lashed Vash's duffle bag to the back of hers. Meryl checked the shot in her derringer and the children eyed the stun gun Milly rested across the saddle with clear admiration. They mounted up, Jasmine riding behind Milly and Doug behind Meryl. She felt Doug lean out and turn around as they left the city, searching for something. After a while she felt him settle back in the saddle with his arms around her, his small frame shaking with silent sobs.

She put her hand over his arms, and he nuzzled his face into her back.

Vash and kids? This really was the last straw. When she saw that man again, she was going to pound him until he told her everything she wanted to know.

They were just exiting the city when a thunderous explosion shook the air. High above them, Meryl saw an orb of light. Milly was quicker on the uptake than she. She reached around Jasmine and hauled out the camera and set it to live filming.

"That has got to be a plant." Meryl breathed; she could not vocalize his name. Her heart was tangled with anxiety for Vash, as her mind cascaded with images she had been desperately avoiding. She gulped air as she felt the terror rise up inside her. She could not go to pieces here. Not while she had two children to protect. There was a crackle of gunfire and Meryl struggled to force herself into reality as she realized it was not as distant as she thought. She tried to speak, and only managed after several sharp breaths to force down the panic. She could not go to pieces.

"Milly!" She shivered as she booted the tomas into a run. She hoped the road was firm enough that it would not stumble in the dark. Her partner followed her, panning the camera across the landscape, using the infrared filter to try to make out potential dangers.

"Meryl! There are people coming! We need to get off the road."

They slowed their run to a loping trot and headed out into the open desert, but not fast enough. Trucks roared out from the city, and a swath of machine gun bullets juddered over their heads. There was a sudden loud crack and a shriek from Milly, but her partner still seemed to be able to keep her seat. More than that, she could not check. It was all she could do to keep her mind present and focused around the terror.

Meryl could hear Doug whimpering in fright at her back as they raced down between the dunes. They ran for almost two iles, heading west as best they could. They managed to lose the trucks and their erratic gunmen after a very tense half an hour, and spent the rest of the time plodding through the dark.

Meryl turned back to find Doug asleep, half curled around Vash's bag. She looked across at Milly, she was holding her cape to her face, that was now black with blood in the moonlight. Jasmine was clinging to her, and was dozing.

"Milly." She whispered, horrified.

"It just grazed me." Milly gave her a brave smile. "We went down that dune too slowly."

They gazed at each other, silently communicating worry, fear, concern and bewilderment.

"I can manage to keep it till we get to the campsite. I don't want to wait out here."

They rode relentlessly. They reached the campsite by two in the morning. She knew why Vash had sent them here, it was among rocks, and fairly sheltered and if needed, defensible. She rolled out her blankets and settled both children; they clung to each other and after settling, went to sleep. She helped Milly with the tomas's then lit a dim lamp and saw to Milly's wound. It was a raw scratch along her hairline and she patched it up and wound a bandage around it. It would do till morning, she did not think it needed stitches. Milly swallowed pain killers and volunteered to take first watch.

"I won't be able to sleep until the worst of the headache is gone." She said with a smile. "Take my bed, I'll wake you at four."

Meryl lay staring up at the cold stars; her hands clenched her hands together. She could not sleep. She could only breathe frustration and exhaustion. Why did she always freak out so badly after witnessing plant powers? She thought she had it under control. The occasional nightmare still woke her, but she had not had one in weeks. She focussed on releasing her breath evenly. She was sure to have one tonight if she could only get to sleep.

The image of Vash standing there, so upset made her want to hug him. She glared at the memory. What he had said made her want to pound him. He had no idea how hard it was for her. Since being trapped at Fort Ryuu Tsu Jou, she had spent the entire time trying not to freak out over the stupid man. He had used his powers right in front of her, to protect her. But the sheer weirdness of it all had twisted her mind into terror. She had also unintentionally shared his memory of July, which had only made it worse. Then to top it off, he had almost lost control again, with her trapped beside him, all within a few minutes of each other. Freaked out was not a strong enough expression for what had happened. It was as if she had been turned inside out with terror. She scowled at the sky, too exhausted to begin to find sleep.

Only it was not only terror, it was self-preservation, and the desire to cling to life. She turned onto her side and huddled in a tight ball under her blankets, her arms tightly around herself. She fought the overwhelming wave of helplessness with all she had, trying her best not to think of the man. If it went badly, she would never see him again. That finally brought tears.

She recalled her last conscious thoughts before falling asleep. The terror was an acknowledgement of the vast differences between her and a creature other than human.

Meryl sat with Milly's stun gun on her lap. She was working through the various policies Bernadelli offered for life insurance in her head. It was mind numbingly neutral and helped her remain calm. Anxiety was too close to terror and she needed to think clearly if she was to sit watch. She realized she was still very on edge at how hard she jumped noticed a figure approaching. She was on her feet, and had aimed the gun before she recognized the silhouette. She set the gun down and pelted across the sand as fast as she could. Vash walked wearily through the dim pre dawn light, his arm and face bloodied. His shoulders were slumped and he looked more defeated than she had ever seen him. He still wore his gun openly and clutched the revolver in his other hand. He didn't seem to see her as he walked past.

"Vash?" She caught his arm.

He gazed at her as if trying to work out who she was; the pain, sorrow, guilt and remorse clear in his eyes.

"I couldn't save her." He breathed, horrified, and too stunned to cry.

Meryl did not know what to say to that.

"Their mother?" She whispered.

His haunted expression answered it for her. She patted him on the arm, automatically, somehow the inner part of her had lost contact with her body, she felt numb.

"You're a mess. You'll scare the children if they see you like that. I'll go and heat you some water."

He seemed to become more self aware as she spoke. He slipped his revolver back into its holster and with a flick of his wrist, the machine gun returned to his arm.

By the time Vash entered the camp, plasters and bandages in place and clad in his leather armor, Meryl had the breakfast cooking. Somehow having him back safe had scared her fears away for the time being, or was it the sheer annoyance at this new development? How could she want to both hug and pound a person at the same time? It did not make sense. Vash tucked his red coat under one arm and stopped beside the children to stare at them, the sorrow still etched on his face. To her surprise, he smiled suddenly and crouched down and stroked the girls hair, nodding as if in response to something.

Doug opened his eyes.

"Sheesh you two are noisy in the morning." He grumbled.

Meryl stirred the porridge. Had she seen what she had thought she had seen? Could they somehow communicate mind to mind?

Jasmine turned over, stealing all the blankets and this started a fight. She was amused that Vash just walked away, leaving them at it. They watched him go.

"See, I told you he wouldn't fall for it." Jessica said aloofly.

"Is he really a plant?"

They both stared at him as he settled on the far side of the rocky cave and dug his bedroll out of his duffle bag. He spread it out, pulled the blanket over him, then threw his coat over that, and after tucking his head under the blankets lay still.

Meryl had to wait until midday when Milly roused herself before she could vent. The children amused themselves scrambling over the rocks and Vash slept. She had been alarmed when he had started crying in his sleep, but the children had immediately gone over to him and had patted his head and hugged him. She was not sure what he thought of this, but he waved them off after a while. They had sat watching him then had gone back to playing on the rocks.

Milly sat down beside her in the shade and sipped at their canteen.

"They're very lively." She smiled.

Meryl told her what they had done to Vash and the interaction she had seen that morning.

"If they are his, then they would be plants." Milly reasoned.

"I never knew plants could have kids!" Meryl said grouchily, realizing her reasoning was faulty, which made her even grouchier.

"Er, yes they can," Vash yawned and sat down beside them. "Where do you think Knives and I came from?"

Meryl jumped, mortified. Suddenly having him so close to her was infuriating. She glared at him.

"Okay, you. Spill. What in the hell is going on?"

He leaned back against the rock behind them and rested his long arms on his knees.

"I don't know." He sounded so bewildered and lost that Meryl believed him.

"What do you think is going on? Is it your brother? Who was shooting at you last night? Why do you suddenly have custody of the kids? In short, Vash the Stampede, tell me everything you know so I can at least try and help you!"

He smiled faintly, which jarred with his words; he seemed too far-gone in despair to care.

"I think the Terrans are hunting down independent plants and killing them. I don't know where Knives is. I think it was the Terrans last night. Their mother was killed last night. And I have no plan as to the future or any more too add that could help."

"Those poor children." Milly sniffed.

"Sorry I got you caught up in it." He said and put his face in his hands.

Meryl patted him on the arm before she realized what she was doing, and snatched her hand away.

"It was lucky we were there." She told him. "Or those kids would be dead."

He sniffed and she realized he was crying, tears running down his face.

"I don't know what to do any more." He whispered. "This is too big."

Meryl watched him.

"Well, stop being a plant with an agenda of your own and learn from the humans." She said knowing how much such an idea would rile him. "Get your fellow plants, form a gang and give them a taste of their own medicine."

He drew himself up and stared at her, hurt.

"That would only cause further heartache and suffering to everyone involved, and would only serve to drive a wedge further between plants and humans. Can they not see we are all just people? That we can all get along. Don't they understand love, or peace?"

"No, they understand power and war."

"That is all they know." He said with patience. "Until they are shown another way, how can anyone expect them to do differently?"

"There's your answer." She smiled at him.

His answering smile lit up his face.

"Love and peace." He whispered.

* * *

Jim's Farm

The outlying homestead they reached as night was falling was too much of an opportunity to pass up. The children were riding the tomas's and Meryl watched the two story mansion with undisguised longing. There were three large water tanks on the roof. Milly saw the notice tagged to the fence.

"Help wanted. Board and Lodging provided. Application in person only. Cliff Cottage."

"It does not say what help." Jasmine pointed out. "Nor does it say that they will pay us."

"But it says food and bed." Milly smiled. "We could do with that."

Their supplies were low and they had been on the road for a solid two weeks, and were marching on just over half rations.

"At what cost?" Jasmine asked.

"Hard work never hurt anyone." Milly told her. "And farm work is the best there is."

"Which is why you're toting a camera around." Doug said not quietly enough.

Milly smiled.

"I grew up on a farm. I thought I'd see the world, is all."

"Desert and more desert, great world we have here." Doug muttered grouchily.

"Hey," Jasmine looked around, "where's Vash?"

They all looked around; he had been with them as they had walked up the road.

A gunshot went off and Vash reappeared at a run. He leaped the fence as another bullet threw up dust behind him.

"Heee!" He breathed as they all hastily retreated further down the road. "Scary!"

"What did you do?" Meryl asked.

"That was the wrong house." He pointed down the hill. "Cliff cottage is that place."

Further down the valley was a stone house, built partly into the hill.

The visions of a wonderful bath faded dismally in Meryl's mind. This was a small home with a dog and a tomas loose in the front yard; they were familiar companions as they chased after each other up and down.

"I don't think they could hire all of us." Doug remarked, observing the dilapidated nature of the place.

"We won't know until we ask." Vash leaned over the gate, though cautiously did not enter the yard. At his voice, three tiny children peered over the split door.

"Hello!" He called. "We saw the notice."

A man looked out, the pipe slack in his mouth.

"It's our notice, my friend." He called. "But we're done hiring, forgot it was still up."

"It's planting season, right? You could use some help?"

"Sure could, but we can't pay you."

"So it is like the notice said, board and lodging for the work?"

He frowned and his pipe migrated from one side of his mouth to the other.

"Well, if you don't mind sleeping in the loft above the tomas stalls, then you're welcome at our table. We could use an extra hand."

"Jim!" A stricken voice called from inside, and a muttered conversation followed.

"Izzy, they have kids, and we ain't paying 'em, we both get a little worse but a little better for having shared."

A woman with wild curly hair leaned out of the door and her eyes widened at them.

"Of course they must come in!" She scolded her husband. "Go help them, and make sure Tomtom doesn't get loose."

"Aye, Izzy." He said easily and after shooing the children off the door went out to them.

The table was packed. The couple had eight children between the ages of seven and two, five farm hands and their five. Meryl spent the first three courses simply eating the food was so good. Even Vash shut up for five minutes, then could not hold it in any longer and spent the rest of the meal reeling off compliments. Milly had settled down happily and was telling the twins about how she had grown up with her numerous siblings and the fun they had had.

* * *

There was a bath. It was the tin washtub, with water heated over the stove, but it was wonderful. Meryl tried to hurry as both Jasmine and Milly were waiting on the other side of the blanket that hung from the drip line drawn across the room. Milly was industriously washing clothing by hand. Meryl declined the task; she could last until they made it to the next city and a Laundromat. She stepped out of the room to wait for them. She caught a snatch of conversation from the room opposite. From the pipe smoke and clink of glasses, the men were having a nightcap.

"So she's not your wife?" Jim said, puzzled.

"The big girl?" Vash sounded astonished. "No."

"But the kids are yours?"

"Yes, well, they're sort of, um."

There were some dark chuckles.

"So, big girl shows up with kids and a reminder of a certain night so long ago..."

"What? No! It's nothing like that!"

"You mean you don't remember the night?"

There was more laughter.

"Don't worry, Izzy surprised me in the same way a few years back. Can't say I was happy then, but I came to like it. Kids grow on you."

"It's not like that."

"Just accept it pal." Jim said kindly. "Them happy bachelor days are gone, and responsibility is nailing your foot to something for the first time in your life. Tell the big girl you'll do the right thing by her and you'll get a few more of those nights."

There was more laughter.

Meryl walked away. She went to stand in the yard and let the cool air play over her face. A few minutes later Vash stumbled into the yard, saw her and walked over to her.

"Where is Milly?" He fidgeted anxiously.

Meryl arched an eyebrow at him.

"Washing clothes."

"Tell her not to listen to what those men tell her tomorrow, no matter what they tell her."

"Why?" Meryl asked, hiding her amusement at how awkward he was.

He went still and hunched his shoulders.

"She still misses Wolfwood. They will only upset her."

Meryl stared at him, her heart softening slightly as she realised he was not trying to protect himself, he was honestly worried about Milly.

"I'll try." She said.

He scuffed his feet on the ground then seemed to come to himself. He straightened and scratched at the back of his neck, then laughed ruefully.

"Things have sure taken a turn for the unexpected."

Meryl could heartily agree with him on that.

* * *

Meryl walked down the hill with her spade over her shoulder feeling, for want of a better word, mortified. The day's work was digging holes for an irrigation system, which Milly and Vash seemed to have no problem with, but she had discovered the first time she had stood on the spade that she was simply not heavy enough. She had tried thumping the spade with her foot when her arm thrust did nothing but bounce the spade on the hard earth. She had then tried jumping on the spade, and had to leap awkwardly off when it fell sideways, and her antics had made the rest of the digging team almost wet themselves laughing. Milly had hurried over and had tried to show her the technique, but it had not worked.

"I'll dig enough holes for both of us!" Vash had said gallantly.

"Yer charming the wrong girl, pal!" Someone had said just loud enough for Meryl to catch.

"I'll go and find some other work." She addressed Jim who gave her a nod.

She left the spade in the tool shed and entered the house. Izzy had set the twins down with her children and had insisted that they do their reading, writing and arithmetic for the morning. She was not in the room when Meryl entered, but five children looked up from their work at the kitchen table. Jasmine leaped out of her chair with the paper she had and held it under her nose.

"I got them all right. Can I go?"

Meryl shifted the paper down to a more readable distance. They were sums suitable for a nine year old. She eyed the girl, who gave her a pleading stare not to give the game away.

"If that is all your work for today."

Jasmine was out of the door before she could finish her sentence. Doug came up to her a moment later and held out a stack of papers and looked shiftily at her. Meryl was quite astonished, he had the day's work on the top of the stack, the rest of the papers were the household accounts, all balanced and marked where the errors were and neatly written suggestions as to how to not make such errors in the future.

She gave him a nod, and he sped after his twin. Meryl left their worksheets on the table, but kept the accounts, she would not want to offend their hosts.

"Through here." An elderly gentleman followed the oldest son, a boy of thirteen years. He doffed his cap at Meryl and went along the passage towards the bedrooms. A short while later Meryl heard a wail and ran through with the rest of the children.

Izzy was sitting on her bed with all her children around her, cradling the youngest and sobbing. The children began wailing with her. The doctor, seeing her there, took her out of the room and closed the door on the cacophony.

"I cannot do anything for the child. His only hope is to go to the city hospital." He looked back at the door in anguish. "Poor mite probably won't make it even then."

The eldest son slipped out of the room.

"I'll tell pa." He ran past them.

Meryl went out to look for the twins. She followed their tracks up the edge of the cliff as she saw the people who had been digging now hurry down the hill. She came to the edge of the cliff and found a hollow. At the bottom of it were the twins, they both had spades and were industriously digging away the loose sand. They were certainly industrious about their work. When Jasmine crouched down and brushed away the sand to reveal metal, she stood indecisive for a moment, then left them to it. Even if it were part of an old ship, it would take them days to unearth it. At least it would keep them out of the sorrow in the house.

She walked back down the cliff and slowly over to the house. She had just entered the cottage courtyard when a series of gunshots went off in rapid succession. She followed the crowd who surged out of the kitchen and over to the road. Jim came pelting down the road at a dead run, he staggered the last few yarz and pitched over in the dirt in front of them. Meryl could not get a good look to see what had happened before the men lifted him up and carried him inside.

"Ella shot him." One of the farm hands sounded shocked.

"Pa!"

Meryl found herself squashed in the corner with Milly and Vash as pandemonium broke out. Vash silently sidled out, and Meryl and Milly quickly followed him.

"Stay there." He waved them back at the house.

"No thanks!" Meryl exclaimed.

Milly looked torn.

"I'll stay, you help Mister Vash." She turned and ran back inside.

Meryl had to run to catch up to his long legged stride.

"There's no need for you to also get involved." He said dismissing her.

"The twins are digging up part of a space ship." She told him. "Are you sure you don't want me to handle this?"

"Where?" He looked around for evidence of a ship skeleton. The only thing that could be seen was far in the distance where the town power plant rose high above the buildings.

"Top of the cliff." Meryl pointed in the other direction.

He glanced across at the site then shook his head.

"Aw man! Those two are worse than Knives and I ever were!" He looked at the cliff then the house on the hill then back at the cliff. "They can't get into too much trouble. Can they?"

"You'd know best."

He shot her a panicked look.

"You go and tell them to stop."

"No. I'm going up to the house."

"So am I. You only have one derringer."

"Never stopped me before."

He sighed and dropped his shoulders.

"I'm not on a winning streak right now, am I?" He whined dejectedly.

"Not quite, but you know when to quit." She gave him an encouraging smile.

She did not see the expression of pure frustration which consumed him as she stepped past, then suddenly a thought occurred to him and his expression became angelic. He sauntered after Meryl.

Vash was enjoying himself by the time they reached the house, and he opened the gate for the short girl. She shot him a suspicious stare before entering the yard. She leaped back as a shot went off and sprayed grit over their ankles. He waited. Meryl raised her hands to yell, then inched over to him.

"Why are we here?" She hissed. Ah.

"Go and get the twins." He told her. Digging up a space ship? She thought that was a worry? He would go and join them when he was done here. He just did not want her there. Somehow she seemed to be all over his thoughts, and having her around threw him. Watching her trying to dig a hole that morning had almost caused him to burst a blood vessel with the effort of not laughing.

He caught her fist as she tried to punch his arm. She always seemed to forget how much she hurt herself when she hit the prosthetic.

Another bullet fired into the ground and he stepped forwards with his hands raised.

"I'm here to speak to Ella, I have a message from your sister Izzy!"

A silence followed, then a female voice called out, strained by the need to shout.

"I can hear you, say it!"

"No. I would speak to you face to face."

"And I would not. We are at an impasse, sir."

He took out his revolver and placed it carefully on the ground.

"I have put my gun down, I'm coming in."

Meryl was still following him. She did not even know the situation here, why was she so tenacious?

"Get back!" He hissed at her.

She missed a step, startled and he flung himself around, he threw up his arm to deflect the bullet and pushed her back with the other. The bullet stung against his left arm, but only tore his sleeve.

"Go!" He darted out of the guns range, hoping Meryl listened this time. Fifteen, then silence, the magazine was empty, he had a few seconds window to reach the house. He sprinted.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

Vash kicked in the door and activated the machine gun as he sprinted through a sudden hail of bullets. He caught three of the gunmen, causing them to drop their guns then bounded up the stairs, firing as accurately as he could at those on the upper landings. Someone grabbed him, he swung his elbow where he expected there to be a stomach and his arm found nothing but air. He fiercely twisted out of the grip and kicked at the gunman's stomach, sending him flying into the wall, noticing with some alarm the over long arms and the strangely articulated legs. So someone in this mansion needed modified goons. He kicked out at another gunman who leaped at him from a higher flight and sent him tumbling down the stair to land in a groaning in a heap at the bottom. That one had strange claw like fingers. Vash made it to the door and found it locked. Someone grabbed him from behind and he snapped his arm back, extending his palm so that he connected with the solar plexus, the modified men seemed to have a similar build, which meant with a few adaptations, he could fight them. He slammed the man's breath out of him and he dropped. He kicked open the door, then grabbed a chair beside it, slammed the door shut and jammed it closed on the goons, not that that would hold them long.

Inside was a pale, young woman with the same curly hair as Izzy. A large man with thick grey hair held a gun to her temple as she whimpered and cried. By the bruises on the side of her face and arms, they'd not been kind to her.

Okay. Tricky.

"Who the hell are you?" The man demanded.

He put a hand to his chest and preened.

"Me? Well now, have you heard of the legendary outlaw, Vash the Stampede?"

The man barked a laugh and lazily lifted his pistol, cocking it in the same motion then fired. He dodged. Excellent, an excuse to shoot back.

He shot the rope loose first, then took out the leg of her chair when she did not at first realise she was free. He sent the man with grey hair scurrying for cover.

He went to rescue the girl, but she was gone. Huh? The next thing he knew a click sounded at his ear. Ah there she was, not looking nearly as beaten up as she had first appeared.

"Hello!" He tried winsomely. Her eyes narrowed and she pressed the hot muzzle to his jaw.

Okay, very tricky. He raised his hands.

"Drop your weapons." The grey haired man ordered.

"Not holding any!" He managed before the blow hit him.

He did not see who shot his left arm out from behind, but it hurt like the blazes. It felt like eternity, but was perhaps less than a second before the ragged signals caused the neural feedback to shut down. He let the arm fall loosely at his side. Let them think they had disabled it entirely. At least they hadn't shot it off. Now, think. Why had they tricked him? They had not recognised him. So it was not the bounty. Who was supposed to have seen this set up? Jim? But they had sent him home with bullet wounds. Ah, no, she had sent him home with bullet wounds; he recognised the revolver shells on the floor. Those were not the machine gun rounds that had chased him.

This had something to do with Jim, Izzy and Ella. Oh great, a love triangle?

"He's still alive." He said calmly, watching her reaction out of the corner of his eye.

Her eyes widened and she looked very relieved. Bingo. But that didn't help him.

"I have a message for you, Ella, if I could speak without the threat of being pumped full of lead the instant I sneeze."

"Don't sneeze then." The man growled at him.

He wrinkled his nose suddenly intensely itchy with the dust and gunpowder and breathed through his mouth. It was as he was concentrating that he felt it, the whole house shook with it, a faint tremor, most unusual, and strangely familiar.

"Let him speak Trey." Ella ordered.

The gunmen lowered their weapons, but she did not.

"The message."

"Oh, right. Izzy asks that you give her ten thousand double dollars and use of the car. Baby Jim is dying."

Ella gasped and lowered the gun.

She glanced at Trey.

"I can't." She breathed, turning back to him her eyes wide. "I can't give my sister the money."

"Then her child will die." He said more coldly than he intended.

She put her hands up to her face in a gasp, and he was bewildered to see her mouth 'help me' and shoot a frightened gaze at Trey.

What in the hell _was_ going on here?

* * *

Meryl picked up his gun. It was far too heavy for her to use with any accuracy, even two handed. She raised it to sight along it then lowered it again. It felt odd, as if she had stolen a private thing from him. Why had he left it? He never let that gun out of his sight if he could help it. The last she had seen of him was his gangly form galloping up the stairs, dodging bullets in his wildly erratic manner.

She walked down the road, back to where she had seen the twins. She could do that much for him, she thought bitterly, watch the children.

"What am I to you, Vash the Stampede?" She demanded of thin air, infuriated. "A babysitter? For your damned kids?" Hah!

She was still fuming when she marched up the cliff to where the kids were digging. There were two spades, and the coat that Doug had been wearing, but no kids. There was also a large aperture door now open in the hull of the ship. Oh hell.

She leaped down the rocks to the door and peered through the open door into the ship. This section seemed to be rather damaged and worn, as if it had been open to the elements for some time before someone had closed it up again. It also seemed that the passage went north. She tried to orientate herself, oh just her damn luck, towards the house. There was also a trail of sand heading that direction with scuffed prints that would perhaps belong to a nine year old.

She leaped down before she could think straight and ran.

She managed perhaps fifty yarz before it became too dark to see. She patted herself, looking for some source of light. She found the microphone, and her derringer. She slipped the gun into her hand and patted at the rest of her pockets. First aid kit. She dug in there and came up with medical supplies, but no fire lighting tools. Just excellent. She turned back and sprinted out of the ship. She ran all the way back down to the cottage, where Milly was calming the children in one corner, and the old doctor and the men were arguing in another room. She went over to their packs in the corner, snatched up the flashlight and sprinted out of the house again.

The ship was bigger than she had ever imagined. She felt she had walked for at least an ile before she came to a T junction. She glanced back and suddenly knew why when she saw the way the passage vanished to one side. She had been following a spiralling path. What a waste of space on a ship! But there was still no hide or hair of the kids and she was beginning to worry. She had pocketed Vash's revolver, preferring her known accuracy with a derringer for her first shot. The torch was becoming heavy in her other hand.

She froze as she heard a click and a rather odd mechanical whirring. She instinctively flinched to the side and flipped the torch off. She felt along the wall until there was an alcove and feeling a little more protected, she crouched, her derringer ready, waiting. A beam of light flashed against the wall near her and Jasmine put her head out of the door.

"Quick!" She called and then the light went out. Meryl was startled to see the children run back the way she had come in the dark without apparent need for a torch.

She stood up and turned the torch back on, her mission complete.

A gunshot startled her so much she jumped almost a foot in the air and shrieked involuntarily. She dropped the torch, and it rolled away from her, flashing light in her eyes before she could get a fix on her attacker. She dove into the darkness as more shots followed. She thumped up against the side of the wall and the door opened. She scrambled in, and felt blindly in the dark as the door closed again. Crap. Where was she? She found the wall and hurried along it, fumbling over obstacles and into things.

But she was not fast enough. The door of the room thudded open and the light came on. She crouched, and discovered she was trying to hide behind a clear glass screen. Two men cautiously peered in, and both raised their revolvers when they saw her. She stood up and held out her gun.

"I will shoot you." She told them as they came nearer.

"With that pea shooter?" One laughed.

She edged away backwards, and stumbled as the wall behind her revealed itself to be a door as it slipped sideways into the wall.

"State your destination." An oddly accented recorded voice chimed.

Meryl saw numbers flashing on the wall.

"Three!" She shrieked and flung herself to the side as one of the men pulled his trigger.

There was a terrible sensation of falling combined with the explosion of the gun. She smelled something like burning rubber as the chamber like lift she was in suddenly slowed. The door opened half way and got stuck. What she liked even less was that the floor level was just above her head. She holstered her derringer and fighting flat panic and adrenaline pumping, she hauled herself up through the gap and out onto the third deck of the ship. Right into a dimly lit room.

A dimly lit room. She was forever thankful that it was dim lighting. There were perhaps eight beds in the room, each encased in a circular tube of glass. Within them were what looked like people, until she looked closer. If they had been people once, their bodies had been morphed and modified into something beyond horrific. There was a faint, but very familiar smell of death about the room. The elevator clunked behind her and began its ascent.

She crossed the room at a flat run, her heart hammering. She darted out into the passage and was particularly relieved to find it partially lit. She turned back to run the way she had come in, but the layout was different on this level. She followed the zig zagging passage as best she could, and then found something almost as good as the way out. Stairs. She sprinted up them taking two at a time, counting the levels as she ran, but by the time she had counted three, she was still not on a dark level that spiralled outwards. She cautiously went up another level. Still not. Another. Panic clutched at her heart again.

The stairs ended. But she was still not out on the level she needed to be. She checked the passages, but was completely disorientated. She could no longer tell which way was the entrance or the exit. Somehow that made her feel claustrophobic. She placed a hand on the wall and closed her eyes and took a steadying breath. Not now, she had to concentrate, she had to find some way out.

* * *

With a swift movement, Vash claimed Ella's revolver from her hand and took the opportunity to put his arm around her, pinning her to him. He really regretted not having good use of his left arm, he could have hugged her to, well, comfort her in the moment.

Trey's aim shook, trying to aim at him without including Ella.

"Why don't you tell me what you have hidden beneath this house?" He asked conversationally.

Trey gaped at him, his arm shaking.

"What do you know?"

"It's still feeding power from the power plants in the town, even after all those years since it crashed." He reasoned and saw he was right.

"Who sent you?" Trey demanded, frightened.

He ignored the question.

"You're using the ship's hospital as a biogenetic convertor, or none of those strange men in the passage would have lived through the alterations you put them through."

"You know about the reconstruction program?"

Now he did, to his surprise Trey turned on Ella, his hands steadying.

"You bitch, you betrayed us!"

"No Trey!" She sobbed. "No, I did not!"

Trey's eyes went narrow as his resolve hardened.

"Hey! Careful!" Vash raised the revolver. "Let us take a walk down there."

Trev squeezed the trigger and Vash shot the gun out of his hand, sending the shot wide.

"I said, let us take a walk."

* * *

Meryl hugged her arms around herself knowing it was all irrational fear. That was all that claustrophobia was, it didn't help her that her mind refused to believe her rational side and the walls closed in around her, suffocating her. No. She was stronger than this. She had to use logic; she forced her panic-stricken mind into action. If she followed the passage in one direction, it would lead her to the end of it, and if that were not the exit, then it would follow, that travelling in the other direction would. She walked. She heard faint gun shots and looked upwards. Somewhere above her, there was another level to this ship. She began to search for hidden doors, trailing her hands along the walls. After finding the first, she took out Vash's gun and as heavy as it was, waved it shakily about at every shadow. The room had contained the same beds with the cylinders around them. Only this time, there was the muted rhythmic bleeping of life support systems. The monsters rested here, not yet alive and not yet dead. Her nerve broke and she sprinted down the passage. She was so unnerved that she almost missed it. Another stair. She managed three stairs a time and reached an upper door and had opened it before realising that it was nothing like the ship. It was a normal door, which opened into a normal room. With people in it. People with guns. Pointing at her. She did not care. This was ordinary terror. She could face it.

She shrieked as a heavy hand clamped over her right hand and relieved her of the heavy gun.

"Get down!"

She gasped as Vash was suddenly there, facing the people in the room with his revolver. Where had he come from? Had she been that terrified that she hadn't noticed him?

He backed towards her, slowly, forcing her back down into that terrible ship.

She grabbed the back of his coat.

"No!"

He did not listen.

"This is your last warning." He said with an eerie fury and awful sadness in his voice.

She looked past him, her head clearing oddly in panic. She would not be going back into the ship. But beyond her in the room stood four men with assault rifles. A girl crouched on the floor sobbing and a man beside her stood with both his hands on his revolver stock.

"You cannot do anything." The man spat at him. "They are too far gone."

"I cannot do nothing." Vash replied evenly and took another pace back. Meryl dipped down a step and felt him sink into a balanced stance as she pulled the back of his coat.

"It's just him boss." One of the men said, though cautiously.

He made the mistake of firing his rifle. Meryl did not hear the separate gun shots, but all four suddenly dropped their rifles amid yells of shock and pain. Vash took another step back, negotiating the stairs now. She tried to shove him right back up them.

He suddenly fired at the ceiling, and the lamp that was there fell in a shower of glass shards and sparks. It arced for a while then went dead.

Meryl shrieked when he grabbed her around the waist and leaped down the stairs, whole flights at a time. As soon as he was in the ship, he dumped her on the ground, slammed a panel open, activated a bar barrier and then ripped out the electrics, shorting it so that another set of doors slammed closed over the bars. They were trapped on the ship.

She stared incredulously. He couldn't drive, nor could he manage to ride a tomas, but somehow he could fuse a ship door. She watched him inspect the arrangement, and gingerly touched the door. It slid back open without any resistance. Oh. He had shorted it, and completely blown the locking mechanism.

"Ah, er... " He positioned the door closed then gingerly stepped back from it.

She was startled when his gloved hand appeared in front of her.

"We need to hurry!"

She took it and he pulled her to her feet, then she remembered the things that were sleeping. She clamped her hands around his and stepped as close to him as she dared.

"Vash." Her voice betrayed her feelings; it came out all quivery and scared. "There's monsters on this ship."

"They might look like monsters." He said softly. "But they were once people. Come, we're going to see if any are alive."

"No!" She shrieked and tried to haul him back to the stairs.

He set his feet and she found she couldn't budge him.

"Hey now." He murmured and gazed at her. "Would it help if I told you what happened here?"

She didn't want to know anything.

"But you must come with me, that tampering will activate the ships security override, and it might register us as intruders, and then we'll be in trouble."

He tugged her firmly after him down the passage. It was then that she noticed his left arm was hanging uselessly at his side and she was clinging to his only firing arm. She released his hand and fetched out her derringer again. He smiled encouragingly at her.

"This way."

This way took her back past the softly bleeping room that had so horrified her earlier. Vash slipped his revolver away, and went across to the screen and ran a finger down the list of readings. She crouched at the door, twitching at his every movement. She constantly checked the passage, then into the room.

"Ah!" He sounded happy. "This will wake them up."

"No!" She shrieked at him.

He keyed in a code and there was a sudden change in the heart rate monitors. The things in the tubes stirred slightly. Meryl backed into the passage, unable to voice the terror twisting around her.

There was a grinding clonk behind him. Vash turned, his face still smiling.

"No!" He bawled, then dove for the floor and rolled as gunfire tore through the ships consoles and broke the glass cases around the creatures. The consoles sparked and shorted as an odd wailing scream began, followed by more throat rattling cries. Meryl watched as Vash picked himself off the passage floor, his face turning to horror. The cries were not coming from those that had been shot.

"No. What have I done?"

The strangely morphed people in the cases were calling out in pain.

"I'm sorry." His lips moved but no sound emerged in his anguish.

Meryl felt the cries drill through her head and shudder through her heart. Vash dove out of the way as bullets tore into the passage way floor. She sprinted after him as the gunmen leaned out into the passage and let off a round after them. As they reached the stairs to the lower level they heard the gunmen who had emerged from the lift systematically shoot each creature. The cries were silenced by the time they had made it to the next level. Vash persisted, though he had tears spilling down his face. He went directly to the lab on the next level, but they were too late. The gunmen had done a thorough job here. Down and down they went. Meryl keeping up with him out of sheer terror. They finally came to a room with no bodies in it.

She recognised the glass plates she had tried to hide behind.

She knew where she was and where the exit was. She hurried over to the door and to her relief found the torch lying on the floor. She picked it up.

The lights on the ship flickered then yellow lights came on.

"This is an emergency. Please proceed to the pods located at the end of every passage. Warning this is not a drill. This is an emergency."

Vash walked over to the consol in the room and tapped in a code.

"Override incorrect. Enter name and clearance status."

The emergency announcement repeated itself.

She watched him type so fast his fingers blurred, and he was typing with one hand. Across the screen words flashed, and a name which made her pay attention.

"Rem Saverem, clearance granted, authorisation pending."

He kept typing.

"Authorisation granted. Evacuation overridden. Ship status, critical."

He stood back and smiled slightly.

There was a rumbling noise, which shook the entire ship. Vash hunched his shoulders and typed one word, very deliberately.

"Full systems shut down, initiated. All doors will automatically seal in fifty nine, fifty eight..."

"Run!" Vash shouted and sprinted out of the door.

She followed him. She felt another vibration ripple through the ship, followed by a dull booming.

"What's happening?" She shrieked at him.

"Run!"

He reached back and hauled her along after him. He knew his way around this ship. He could hack its systems. He really was who he had said he was. Somehow it took seeing him in action for it to finally sink in. He was as old as he claimed, from the time of the Great Fall.

The countdown reached one, as they were half way down the passage. All the lights went out and Meryl was left with the torch. She held it up and fear led wings to her feet. Now that the ship was in darkness, who knew what could spring out of it?

She saw the light ahead of them and tried to put on an extra spurt of energy, but she was running flat out at the end of her energy. It suddenly struck her she was keeping pace with Vash. Or was it he was slowing his pace to hers?

They reached the opening and Meryl saw why there still was an opening. Two spades jammed the aperture open. Milly hovered with Jasmine and Doug looking down at them wild eyed.

"Don't knock the spades and you'll be able to get out." She called.

"Climb onto my back." Vash crouched down.

She did so, feeling very aware of how patched up he was under his coat. She did not want to jolt or tear anything. He steadied her with his good arm and slowly stood; allowing her to weave her way through the delicate arrangement and Milly pulled her the rest of the way out.

"Meryl, are you all right?"

Her shock must still show on her face. She took a deep calming breath. She stood on the solid metal of the ship, so very glad to be out of it.

"I'm better now, Milly."

She turned back to the jammed door. Vash only had one arm, how was he going to get up?

"Hup!"

She was astonished at how he leaped up his body length and a half then slammed his good hand down, springing himself from the ship entirely. He rolled and the door snapped shut, crushing one spade and dropping the other into the ship below.

"Vash!" Jasmine exclaimed in horror. "What happened to your arm?"

"They tried to shoot me." He said mournfully.

He sat up and examined the mechanism. It seemed fairly intact. A few hours fiddly work working out the dents in the gun's mechanism and it should slot back in fine. He'd have to find a surgeon to reactivate full sensory capacity though. As it was he could only shift it by using his stump.

"Mom never said you were missing an arm!" Jasmine interrupted his thoughts.

"There is a lot your mother never knew about me." He said absently.

He noticed Meryl suddenly stand up and hike up the stones. She flounced off then froze, mid stride. He pricked up his ears, something was wrong. He leaped to his feet and bounded up the stairs. He felt his stomach drop when he saw the mansion on the hill billowing smoke. There were a great deal of people gathered around the house. He set off at a run, Meryl in his wake. The roof of the mansion had fallen in by the time they arrived. He watched as Jim's hired men chased a retreating car on foot, armed with the spades they had been using. Trey and several of the goons that had tried to shoot him earlier had escaped.

He found Izzy and Ella clinging to each other in tears. He kept to the back of the crowd, as Meryl and Milly and the twins joined him.

Back in the great kitchen of the cottage, he examined at the small television the twins had jury rigged out of parts they had stolen from the ship. So this was what they had been up to. He was relieved they had not seen anything else of the ship, they were aware of the darkness of the soul, but not yet the extent of the depravity and he would keep them from that for as long as he could. They had also stolen a power supply, that if they ever needed to recharge, required plant energy. The other children were gathered avidly in front of it, tuned in to the singing and dancing that passed as children's entertainment. It was not bad for two kids who had had to learn their electronics out of a book.

He sat back in his chair, using the tools the twins had acquired, and tried to twist a torn piece of metal back into place on the prosthetic. Oh man was this thing was intricate. Meryl was explaining something to Jim. If he did not know better, by all the papers it seemed like she was trying to sell him insurance. Milly had been into town to buy new spades, and was now assembling the pieces. It was then that Ella and her sister came through. Ella cradled the youngest of her sister's children against her bosom.

"Izzy, we'll write as soon as we know what the diagnosis is." She promised.

"You don't have to leave us forever!" Izzy exclaimed. "I know this is not quite the mansion, but we could make room for you."

"I must go. I have made up my mind to stay in the city." Ella's eyes flickered to Jim. "I need to find my own life." She patted the baby. "And save little Jim's."

They hugged.

Ah, he liked a good reunion. He wiped at his tears and went back to the stubborn piece of metal. He was astonished to feel hands rest lightly on his shoulders.

"And you, I could almost believe you are who you claimed to be."

"And if you did?" He asked smoothly, and smiled enchantingly at Ella.

She tapped him on the nose; he rubbed away the sensation, offended.

"You aren't half as desirable as you think you are, Mister. Quit the charm."

Oh dear, another Meryl type, who saw right through him and spoke to his raw self without the generosity of humouring him.

Then she kissed him on the cheek. He smiled, all things forgiven, unconditionally, for the price of a kiss. He watched her walk across to the door with her sister she had a homely beauty.

Meryl had forgotten her paperwork and was staring furiously at Ella. He touched his cheek and smiled when he caught Meryl's eye. She delivered one of her furious glares and rather jerkily went back to her beloved paperwork. If that was jealousy he saw there, why did she hide it in anger?


	11. Chapter 11

_**Chapter 11**_

They had left the night the twins had discovered the program about 'Hunting the Humanoid Typhoon'. There had been a stunned silence as the children had watched the intro, and as Meryl and Milly had never seen it, they had no warning either. As one, they had all turned to stare at Vash who had just been shown sprinting away, yelling his head off, from a group of bounty hunters. He seemed to be happily absorbed in watching the program and it was only when one of the younger children gasped dramatically that he realised he had the attention of them all.

"You're Vash the Stampede."

The week spent among the large family at Cliff Cottage had been a good one for the twins, though they were painfully grieving their mother. As they shared the loft, a space of five square yarz, there was not a lot of privacy at night. Meryl was relieved her own nightmares only started her awake without disturbing the others. She had been woken by crying, and had patted Jasmine to sleep more than once. But the worst, was when she had woken to find Vash sitting up in his blankets his useless left arm in a sling and his good hand resting on the head of the child who had snuggled up to him in the night. The expression of anguish on his own face had been enough to make her close her eyes and try to go back to sleep. It always made her feel hollow inside when she saw his honest emotions, as she knew there was nothing she could do to help him.

There had not been much time for explanations. Though Jim had hurried after them and had grabbed Vash's hand and shaken it hard.

"I never knew that I'd meet you in person." He said. "You're not like those awful stories. I'm amazed you'd stoop to save our little family. Thank you."

Vash laughed as the rest of the family had crowded out into the yard. He had been a distinct hit with the older children, playing with them in the evenings when their mother ordered them away from the television.

"Ah, thanks! Any time."

"Aw, must you go?" The younger children tugged at the tails of his duster.

"Yes." He glanced at Jim, the man understood. Death followed him, and he would not bring it to them.

He disentangled himself from the children and leaped the fence to where Meryl and Milly were waiting with Jasmine and Doug on tomas back.

Jim blinked at them, his mouth opening in surprise as he took them all in.

"You know, all we ever hear about you is the mayhem and destruction. No one ever said anything about you having companions or children. You're a more complex man than I thought."

"Why, yes, I am!" Vash said smoothly. Though he turned away feeling helpless. How could he explain that this setup was far from ideal and none of his choosing? He could certainly not say it aloud; at best, it would hurt the children. He managed a rather forced smile and a wave. By the time the cottage was out of sight, he was lost in dark thoughts.

The desert was hot, and as it was her turn to walk, Meryl's only thought was to place one foot in front of the other. Sooner or later the walking would stop. They were strung across the desert in a line. Doug out front, on a tomas, then Jasmine on the other tomas, then her, Milly trailed behind, her stun gun slung over her shoulder, and Vash bringing up the rear. He wore earphones in his ears and was bopping slightly to the music, seemingly quite oblivious to the world and the heat. She opened her canteen and took another sip of water, then handed it across to Milly, who drank happily. They had managed to hitch a ride with their thomas's for most of the distance to Jeneora Rock, but the convoy of three trucks had left them twenty iles away at the crossroads. They did not say anything but there seemed to be a strong reluctance to approach the place. Meryl wondered if the Roderick Thieves were still a threat after the Gung Ho Guns had casually annihilated half of them.

"Only four more iles to go!" Milly said brightly.

"Only?" Meryl breathed, tiredly. Four was very far in this heat.

* * *

Jeneora Rock

They saw the town shimmering in the mirage long before it entered their line of sight. They all headed for the cool shade of the saloon veranda as soon as they entered town. Jasmine and Doug tied up the tomas's and pumped water into the trough as Vash and Milly entered the Saloon, and headed for the bar.

"I'll bring you drinks out here." Meryl promised, noticing the towns folk already watching them. Nothing attracted stares like children in an adult establishment.

"We're old enough to drink." Doug grumbled.

She knew she was short, and it did not help that he came up to just below her shoulder; the boy looked nine years old. She wondered how old he really was, twenty in human years? It must be very frustrating to look so young, yet think with such maturity. Well, perhaps not all that much maturity. They had stolen a bottle of whiskey from Vash two weeks back, and had spent the next day being thoroughly miserable.

She took out a tray of three drinks, iced water for the kids, which Doug would turn his nose up at until he realized how thirsty he was. But they weren't on the veranda near the tomas's. She put the tray down on the windowsill and looked around. She saw two small figures some way down the main street, then they disappeared. She hurried after them and slowed down as the shops sign came into view. Camil Confectioners and Bakers. Jasmine had as sweet a tooth as Vash did for doughnuts.

"I thought you'd brought the money!" Jasmine snapped at her brother.

"Why would I have the money? It's in your pack!"

"Go and ask your parents for money." The man leaned over the counter. "I'll keep these packages here for you."

Meryl grabbed Jasmine as she ran out of the store, as the girl almost ran right past her. She looked like a wide eyed little girl, and seemed to be a year younger than her brother with her slender build and her blond hair in plaits down her back.

"Meryl!" She stepped back as Doug arrived and they both looked shifty.

"Er, we need five double dollars." He said.

She dug out the notes and handed them over, then counted out another five.

"Get Vash some doughnuts too."

* * *

Milly noticed Meryl was missing when she did not re-enter the Saloon. Vash was chatting companionably to the slender bar maid behind the counter. She left him to his distractions and went to find Meryl. There were the glasses she had taken on the windowsill. Then she saw how the saddle bag now bulged. She opened it. A bag of fresh doughnuts, and oddly, Meryl's white cape. Milly looked around, puzzled. Why had her partner removed her cape? She took the bag of doughnuts inside to speak to Vash.

"For me?" He promptly gorged himself, eating five one after the other.

"Big girl?" He asked, his eyes focusing oddly to her left ear. "Why are there two of you?"

She opened her mouth to explain the cape and the doughnuts, but Vash went cross eyed and fell off his chair with a thud.

Everyone in the saloon gawked at Vash who now lay sprawled on the floor. Some laughing at how poorly he held his drink.

Milly gaped at him in horror. What had happened? The doughnuts spilled onto the floor. Oh no. Had someone put something into the doughnuts? Panic shot through her. What had happened to Meryl?

She stuffed the doughnuts into the bag, and squashed them into her pocket.

"That has to be the smoothest bounty capture I have ever seen."

"What? I…" She began to deny it, but when she saw the speaker was a bulky man she thought she recognized, she faltered. Yes, he was the horrible man who had told them off months before for filming the Terran military operation in the desert. She listened as safety catches clicked and guns were cocked, then realized what they must think of her actions. They were after Mister Vash.

Furious at them for taking advantage of his weakness, she slung her stun gun into her hands and glared at them.

"He's mine!"

There was a sudden titter of laughter, and she fired a claw in the direction of four poker players who had all drawn pistols. It took their table out, spilled cards and money and knocked two of them dilly. The horrible man had vanished before she could down him with one.

Before they could recover, she hauled Vash off the floor. For all his height and the bulk of his coat, he was as skinny as a rail and did not have much meat on him. She flung him over the tomas outside, then leaped on the other and awkwardly steered with her knees as she tied Vash to the saddle. Once secured, she called them into a full gallop and ran off into the desert. There were mountains a quarter ile away, which could shelter them until she could think up a plan, or at least work out what was going on. They tried to shoot at her, but a few well placed stun gun claws deterred them sufficiently to allow her to get a good start on them.

* * *

Meryl woke groggily, her head pounding. Someone was hugging her tightly. In fact two people were hugging her tightly. She opened her eyes to find that she was propped up against a hot wall and was made even hotter by the twins who clung to her and each other, their faces buried in her chest. They were moving, she could tell by the nauseating sensation of speed coming through the vibration in the wall. There were perhaps twenty other people crammed into the hot cramped space. The back of a truck? There was enough light coming through the grids at the top, possibly meant for ventilation for her to make out that everyone in the truck was a child. The older children, supported the younger ones, though they all swayed and fell against each other when the truck turned suddenly. She clamped her feet down and grabbed the twins so as not to be launched into the unhappy group opposite her.

"You're awake!" Jasmine whispered.

"What happened?" Meryl asked, bewildered.

"We were drugged." Doug said. "Only they didn't get the dose right for us. We'd only been asleep a few minutes before we woke again. But by that time we were too groggy to do much else than dodge kicks and cling to you. That's the only reason you're here with us. They put all the other women on the other truck."

Meryl did not need to know much else to realize that they'd encountered slave traders. It was illegal, but not even the Feds could do much about it, they could not even keep regular rule of law, let alone police the underworld. She got shakily to her feet, Doug and Jasmine, standing protectively near her and supporting her when she swayed. It should have been the other way round.

"We've got to get out of here." She muttered. Her head was so thick and groggy. "I don't want him drawn into this."

"See, I told you she'd not sit around like a sissy waiting for a rescue." Jasmine sounded smug.

Her twin opened his mouth to argue and Meryl put a hand up, she did not have the energy for their exuberance. She peered around the truck for some kind of weapon, or something that could be made into one. There was nothing, only the children themselves. They were quiet now, watching her. She watched as the sides of the truck rattled, creating an uncomfortable din in the back. Then she saw it, a loose rivet where the grill at the top of the truck allowed air in.

"Jasmine, Doug, give me a boost!" She pointed up at the roof of the truck. There were several broad bars across the roof, supporting the plates above it. If she could grab it…

The twins boosted her leap by a yarz and she missed the bar the first time, picked herself off the floor, her back and rear aching and tried again. It took all her strength to cling on to it, her hands just too small to get a good grip. She walked her feet up the wall of the truck, then waited for a particularly bumpy piece of road and kicked the loose rivet with both her feet. It gave, slightly. Encouraged she tried again. Ten minutes of exhausting hanging and pounding later, she dropped down from the bar and crouched on the floor shaking uncontrollably. There was a small gap, too small for her to hope to fit through it. Jasmine and Doug had their heads together then Doug crouched and with a smooth movement, as if they had practiced it before, Jasmine stood on his cupped hands and leaped as he forced her up. She gripped the bar and to Meryl's shock, stuck her head through the gap. She twisted her body and scrabbled through faster than Meryl could spring to her feet to help her. She managed to provide something for her to ground her feet on, but then the girl was hanging onto the side of the truck, peering in.

"I'll get him!" She called and dropped out of sight.

Meryl stared.

"She just jumped from the truck." She ran to the back where there was a gap in bottom of the door seal. But when she looked out on the road, she could not see Jasmine anywhere. That poor kid.

"She won't get badly hurt. We've jumped off moving sand steamers before." Doug said as he sat down beside her.

"You have?" Meryl murmured astonished. "With your mother?"

He nodded in the dim light.

"What was your mother like?" She asked, wistfully.

"Tall and pretty and had curls in her hair." He said after a moment's silence.

It figured, Meryl thought darkly, Vash was predictable where the ladies were concerned.

"She always told us that we were special. That we had to play with children, and pretend to adults, but she said that we could be ourselves around him. He's just like we are." He thought for a moment. "But he was different to what she described. She said he was a great warrior and leader and had battle strength that no other did. She clearly only knew him when they were younger, 'cause he's not like that now."

Meryl smiled, even having spent a few months with him; Vash had kept his darker nature to himself.

"I think adults see the world a little differently." She said ambiguously.

Doug laughed, rather crudely she thought.

"You spent your time making calf eyes at him, and he pretends not to notice. Then he stares at you when you are not looking and you are too slow to notice. Why don't you two kiss already?"

She thumped him on the head, she was not taking that from a nine year old, precocious or not.

"Ow, what was that for?"

"Saying inappropriate things. Never repeat that to anyone, especially not him. You got that?"

He smiled.

"So you do like him?"

She raised her fist and he ducked away.

"Not repeating anything!" He raised his hands. He settled back down at her side. "Sheesh, grownups get so mad over such silly games."

"Douglas." She murmured menacingly.

He grimaced at her and shut up.

She was surprised when a few seconds later he snuggled up to her as if in apology. She put her arm around him, then felt another hand touch her. The children gathered around, taking comfort in someone who might protect them.

So, Doug had seen Vash watch her? Did he? She would have to find some way of checking that. Not that she wanted to know. It wouldn't change anything. There was an awkwardness between them that kept them apart. Not that she wanted to be together with _him_. What was she thinking?

* * *

Vash woke feeling bruised and sore everywhere. Had he fallen under a stampede of tomas's? Milly, to his frank surprise, was crouched beside him, sponging his forehead with a wet rag.

"Oh, Mister Vash! You've come around!"

She hugged him.

"Hey Milly!" He managed, wincing. There was something terribly wrong for her to cling to him like that. He bewilderedly patted her back, trying to remember what the hell had happened while he was out of it. The last he recalled was drinking in the saloon. Oh no, she was crying.

"What's wrong?"

He looked around as she sat back on her haunches and wiped her eyes. For some reason his head was thick and he had to chase down his thoughts to think straight, what had he drunk at that saloon? He then noticed what was nagging him.

"Where are the short girl and the kids?"

Milly burst into fresh tears.

"I don't know!" She wailed.

He was about to say something silly to comfort her, when she continued.

"I think they ate the drugged doughnuts too!"

Drugged doughnuts? That was a new one. Drugs would certainly explain his thick head.

"Why are we out in the mountains?"

"The people in the Saloon thought I'd drugged you for the bounty on your head. I had to shoot them to keep them off you. We're hiding Mister Vash and I don't know where Meryl is!"

He drank water and tried to clear his head while Milly pulled out the map and they examined it. It was a good map, accurate in geographical features and the lay of the land, but useless for what he needed. He'd have to rely on his memory. He closed his eyes, trying to think up everything he had read or heard about the region. A cold sinking feeling settled at the bottom of his stomach. This had once been the region a merciless band of slave traders had operated: the Roderick Thieves. Half the band had been slaughtered, but what of those that remained?

He heard a noise and pushed Milly to the side as steady regular foot falls and shallow panting breaths announced the person before they came. He dropped his revolver back into its holster as the person came around the rocks into the camp. Jasmine staggered over to them, her blond hair crusted with blood and a bloody nose, as well as grazes on her arms and torn trousers. He darted over and snatched her up. She grabbed him around the neck and clung as if she never wanted to let go. She was too tired to even cry, he listened to her heart rate and breaths gradually slow. She raised a shaky arm and placed a bloody palm against his face. He crouched to balance himself at the sheer tangled terror that roared around her mind. He caught fractured glimpses of Meryl and Doug and a truck and the way it drove away towards the mountains. She let her hand slip down his face and coughed weakly then began to cry.

"Milly." He said, turning to her as the determination settled in his heart. "Get out that camera. You're probably going to want to film this."

* * *

Meryl tumbled to the front of the truck, in a heap of arms and legs and crying. She had bruised her shoulder rather badly, the stop had been that sudden. She helped the children up, pairing them up with their caretakers or siblings. She got to her feet as Doug clung to her. Meryl hunted for a hole to look through. Several of the older children were already peeking through those at their level. She found one, a rusted bullet hole by its size. She peered out into the blazing sunlight of the desert in the afternoon. They were almost at the top of a rise but could not pass. At the top of the hill stood a dramatic figure in red, coat tails flaring in the wind, and the sun glinting off his revolver. He had wrapped his left arm in its sling inside his coat, as the short left sleeve flapped free.

"It's Vash the Stampede!" One of the older children whispered hoarsely.

"He's robbing the truck!" A girl reported in a shrill hysterical voice.

They all jumped as Vash fired a shot into the air and declared himself, though Meryl could hear none of the usual lightheartedness in his voice. They all flung themselves to the ground. Doug pulled her down, and she crouched peering out of a gap where two poorly joined plates. Vash was furious; this did not bode well at all.

The two drivers leaned out of the cab and shot at him. He dodged so easily he made it look like fluke. He took out the man riding shotgun, and by the cries and groans, had shot him through both shoulders. There was a thump as he fell from the truck. The door slammed as the driver leaped out with a bazooka over his shoulder. Vash simply ducked the rocket shell and it spun away, taking out a part of the cliff face half an ile away. He thumped the man with his revolver stock and the driver collapsed, senseless. Vash dragged him a few yarz away from the truck, then brought his companion over to join him.

"Hey Vash!" Meryl called as he bounded past, and too her horror, up into the truck cab. The truck roared into life again.

"You can't drive!" She screamed at him, but her voice was lost in the noise. He crunched the gears and the truck inched over the rise, then he slipped the gears into something smoother, and the truck thundered down the pass.

"You're going to kill us all you idiot!" She yelled, but could not be heard over the howls of terror and shock the children produced. She screamed with them as they felt the truck lift onto two wheels, then grate against the mountainside, only to thump back down again.

Jasmine had really taken to tomas riding, Milly was impressed, if things were different, she would have suggested the girl enter into the races, she could earn quite a bit of money. As it was, Milly half crouched on tomas back with the camera on her shoulder following Vash's insane driving down the mountain pass. Jasmine's tomas picked its way down the pass after him at a run, and Milly's animal galloped after it, allowing her free to film. Dressed in Meryl's cape and her head wrapped in a black shawl of Milly's, if the girl kept her face forward, she could be mistaken for Meryl. Vash had insisted on it, he did not want the children ever appearing on film. Milly thought it sweet of him, being so protective of the twins.

They were well positioned on the last switch back of the pass to see the fenced in warehouses that made up the thieves camp. It stood on the edge of the broken mesa, an unparalleled view of the land for iles around. The town itself huddled in shadow of the mesa. Vash drove flat out towards the eastern gates. He did not stop, but ploughed the truck through them, dragging several yarz of the fence on either side after him as he forced his way in. He crashed the truck into the side of a building. The wall rippled, crumpled and fell outwards. People swarmed out over the wreckage and shots were fired. Vash appeared on top of the truck armed with the semi automatic the man riding shotgun had been carrying. He shot down the gate guns and took out several guards who were trying to shoot the running people. Milly zoomed in; revealing fleeing women and children. They fled out of the camp into the desert. The guards tried to go after them on motorcycles and Vash shot their tires out.

Milly then noticed a convoy arriving at the west of the camp. The west gates were opened as two tanks and twelve armored cars arrived, reinforcements.

Vash caught sight of movement down the road from his vantage point atop the truck, and turned. They had brought reinforcements from the desert. Then something caught his eye. Oh, no, what were the Earth Federation Peace Force doing allied with the slavers? He had known the feds were in on this operation, their local offices receiving a decent cut whenever a trade went down, but he had not expected the Terrans. They had been here such a short time, and were already sucked into the underworld.

He leaped backwards off the truck as bullets ripped through the air where he had been. He shot the lock off the truck; Meryl would be able to get the kids to safety. All he need do was draw them off. He sprinted across the yard, ejecting his spent shells and replacing a new round. The reinforcements were nearly in place, shooting, but missing him. He darted around the wall of the next building. Euch. He could smell human waste. How long had they kept these people here? He shot the lock in and kicked the door open, then ran on to the next door. He stopped at the corner of the building to see where his pursuit had gone. He was momentarily distracted as he watched as a man climbed a sheer wall. Ah, so they had modified people among them. Man, where was help when he needed it? He was astonished when a very distinctive stun gun claw slammed the man against the wall and dropped him. Milly? How? He had left her at the top of the pass with Jasmine! No, he was not refusing what help he could get.

An explosion shook all the buildings, reminding him of his task. He shot off the next two locks, kicked in the doors and ran on to the next building. Acrid black smoke rose billowing into the air, making his task all that more important. He sprinted across the wide yard between the buildings and stumbled to a halt. On the far side Meryl was busy shooting off locks and yelling at people to get clear of the buildings. Milly was keeping the goons off her back. The cleverly hidden twins, though their positions in the eves of the buildings lacked a certain defensive practicality, were up to worse tricks. Doug was protecting his sister who had the camera and was filming the action. Now was not the time to get distracted.

"Ah, so we meet in the field of battle, as it were, Vash the Stampede."

He spun at that voice. He knew that voice. It had a nasty place in his nightmares, unusual for someone he only had suspicions about.

"Johnston." He growled.

He was bulky and tall, and wore his hat low over his eyes. Vash could only catch the twinkle of light on dark depths. Where did this man fit in? He made no sense. He seemed to appear with the Terrans at his back, but his accent was more from far west No Man's Land. He also seemed to have a grudge against him, though Vash could think of many reasons why people hated him, he was certain Johnston had a particular reason.

"You have disrupted our operations too many times."

Ah, could it be he was a key figure in the underworld? That didn't ring entirely true, because they tended to send minions to do their work for them while they enjoyed life. Perhaps someone on the rise, wishing to prove himself?

"There is someone who has been particularly anxious to make your acquaintance."

Nothing good came of such a pompous phrase.

Johnston turned, running his finger along the brim of his hat, his coat flaring out behind him. Vash had had enough. He put a hole through the brim, between his head and his fingers.

"Why not take your own satisfaction Johnston?"

The man froze as he stood there, and did not turn around.

"Because my task is not yet done." He said with eerie calm, and walked on. Another man stood in Johnston's shadow. He was tall and lean, and carried a peculiar gun mounted on his left arm. However, the features Vash saw, that knotted his stomach in sheer terror, were the sandy blond hair and pale green eyes.

"It's not often I get to meet so skilled a gunman." He spoke.

"Skilled? Ha ha! You must be joking." Vash stepped backwards, trying to see a way out of this.

The man did not seem to possess a sense of humor.

"Usually, I meet destroyer pilots, who only know the use of remote weapons, not one on one combat."

Vash stepped backwards again. He could see the haze from the town through the broken edge of the mesa; this was bad, they were too close to the town.

"I expect some entertainment from you before I execute you like I have done the other mad ones."

Eerie light glowed around the rear of the man's weapon.

"He's a plant!" Vash yelled, "get clear!"

He turned and sprinted. The man leaped after him.

"Coward!" He roared, but Vash tore out into the desert. He had to draw the man off.

* * *

Meryl heard Vash's shout and turned seeing the eerie light. Panic froze her for an instant. Vash was running for his life. A bullet slammed into the building sending brick chips stinging across her face. She came to her senses, put her fingers between her teeth and whistled. Jasmine and Doug sagged in disappointment, but clambered down. Milly took the camera from her and continued to film Vash as he sprinted off. The convoy of tanks and cars drove after him. Milly filmed this as Meryl hotwired a truck she found in a warehouse and drove it out. She watched as Jasmine trotted up to her on tomas back, dressed in her cape.

"Doug and I'll follow you." Her brother was cradling a machine gun. She didn't say anything. That particular issue was Vash's problem.

"Get on!" She called to the milling people and children. They clambered in and several of them took trucks of their own, soon emptying the camp.

"Meryl, why aren't we following Mister Vash?" Milly asked as Meryl turned up the steep incline that would take them up the pass.

"Sometimes people are more important than the job." She was impressed that her voice held. She could hardly think for the panic she felt for him.

They arrived in town, hooting and yelling, halted in the middle of the main square. Some people leaped out of the trucks and ran into the surrounding town.

Meryl leaped down and yelled at the sheriff and the deputy who peered out of the office, then recognizing the trucks, retreated.

"You've got to evacuate this town!" She yelled at them.

There was a resounding boom from atop the mesa. The broken walls slipped and boulders bounced down and fell just short of the town.

Milly caught up with her, lugging the camera on her shoulder, pointing it up at the landslide. It was flickering live. Had they been live all along?

Meryl turned as the truck behind her roared into life. One of the women they had rescued turned it and drove out of town, their passengers as terrified as she was.

The sheriff gaped at the landslide.

"What is that?" He demanded, then took another long look at Meryl and answered his question.

"Vash the Stampede."

* * *

Vash lay under a low shelf of rock and watched his pursuit rumble past. He lay there until all he could hear was silence. He put his ear on the ground and listened. Ah, his own heart beat. Then the sudden thud of running tomas's. He wriggled out of his hiding place and waved frantically at the two children. They veered off course and hurried across to him. They leaped from their tomas's.

"What are you doing here?" He demanded and took the machine gun Doug handed him.

"We're fighting with you. Mom said we were to stick with you, not them." Jasmine pointed in the direction the girls had gone. Oh excellent, why did they have to remember that now?

"That man is a plant!" He exclaimed, trying to get the urgency across to them.

"His name is Ezrah Gilbeth, or as mom calls him, Ezrah the Exterminator. He hunts down mad plants." Doug explained. "We've met him before. You could do with our help."

Somehow, this was completely the wrong way round.

"No." He pointed after the girls. "Get away from here."

He did not like the way the twins glanced at each other, as if they had already come to a decision and nothing he said would alter it.

There was a slight crackling in the air, it was all the warning they got. The twins latched onto each other and flung their outer arms out towards the desert; the dazzling white light of their protective dome crackled black for a second then the mountain shook and slipped around them. Vash grabbed them and hauled them back against the rock face as the mountain face slipped away.

* * *

Meryl watched as light flashed and a second landslide broke loose. But this time it was not just a slide, but the entire mountain sheered away, teetered, then crashed down like a gravestone thudding over a grave. The ground shook too much for them to remain standing. When she could regain her feet she tottered over to Milly. Her partner was crouched over the camera. She had dropped it when the quake had hit, and a rock the size of a cannon ball had embedded itself in the casing.

"You brought him here."

Meryl looked down at the sheriff still on the ground, gazing at her with slightly glassy eyes.

"What? No we didn't."

"Meryl." Milly's voice was thin and scared.

She glanced around, as the stunned towns folk gathered around the nearest authority figure they could find. The wall of rock must have taken out quarter of the town. It had missed the power plants, but that was the only positive spin she could put on the situation. The towns folk were still in a stunned state of shock. Following each other, looking for some order to make things right again. It was a lynch mob in the making.

"Milly. Let's go. Now."

"Hey!" The sheriff stumbled to his feet. "Get those women!"


	12. Chapter 12

_**Chapter 12**_

Meryl and Milly had spent that first week avoiding the town's folk who blamed them, the Feds who wanted them for questioning, and the remaining Roderik Thieves looking for revenge all the while hunting for any sign of Vash and the twins. However, there was no sign of them. They had even dared to cross the shifting rocks on the landslide, hunting for any shred of clothing or trace of blood that might give them a clue. When their water ran out on the seventh day, they sneaked back into town. There were enough people there who had seen what they had done to free the women and children. They slipped into the small back room of a house. Charlotte waited there for them. She kept them in secret at the back of her sister's house. Instead of her usual smile her mouth a thin line.

"They are beginning to suspect us." She told them as Meryl and Milly drank thirstily from the glasses Charlotte poured. "They have started searching houses. I think it is best that you leave now. I've packed enough food for a week and a half; you should be able to get to the city if you catch a ride on the way."

They had known this day would come, and Meryl was heartily glad of the warning.

"Thank you." She shook Charlotte's hand; the woman did not like anyone to come any closer. She turned away and left them, closing the door. She did not ask how their search had been. Meryl was relieved. As long as she did not think of it, there was still a grain of hope.

* * *

December City

No Man's Land Broadcasting offices were in the north of December City. She and Milly had both received a very blunt request to present themselves at the offices after Milly had mailed the broken camera back to them. They had left the offices as heroes, out to do a daring, if somewhat insane, quest. People had laughed and cracked jokes and called all sorts of -mostly inappropriate- suggestions. In contrast with that, today they walked into a funeral home. No one spoke to them. People avoided them in the passages and no one looked them in the eye.

"Meryl." Milly murmured nervously as they reached the office of the head of investigative journalism.

"This was my gig." Meryl said, taking a breath and summoning courage. "I requested you join me. I'll take the consequences. Wait out here."

She cracked open the door. There were a number of people in the room seated around a large table, and only three Meryl recognized as NLCB staff. She shut the door.

"Where is your partner, Milly Thompson?" One of the women in tall heels stated.

"Outside." She said, startled.

"Call her in."

Milly tried to make herself smaller by the door, Meryl tried to stand taller.

"Be seated, ladies." A man gestured to the two open seats at the table.

They sat gingerly.

What followed was a two hour scrutiny of every report they had submitted to the NLBC. Meryl realized about half an hour in that she had been duped. The show had not been to show Vash and his good side, or his bad side for that matter, it had been to track him. And, to some extent, to puzzle out where she and Milly fitted in with him. She kept answering the questions they fired at her with open honesty, but did not answer them as completely as she had initially. What a fool she had been. She had been so eager to team up with him again, that she had lost sight of the greater politics.

It came as only a part surprise when their department head shifted two papers across the table at them. He seemed to be the only one still trying to put a positive spin on it all.

"We understand you have put much effort into capturing the footage you have, and tracking this man down. Nevertheless, you must understand that the show's ratings have dropped. We're cancelling the show."

Meryl gazed down at the paper. It was a statement signing off all rights to the recorded works, as well as a company secrecy act. Milly picked up the paper with a surprised expression on her face.

"This says we can't talk about what we saw, or show anyone else." She gazed at those at the table, who seemed rather stunned at her efficient grasp of legalese. Meryl wondered if the fools had forgotten that they were dealing with ex-insurance agents.

"That's rather sad." Milly said, putting the paper down. To Meryl's surprise, she signed it.

"What's wrong, Meryl?" Milly asked. "We still have our memories." She examined the people around the table and Meryl knew then that Milly had seen to their heart, and by the tight expressions on several of their faces, they were uncomfortable with it. Perhaps Milly also sensed, as she did, that not signing was not an option. She picked up her pen and signed.

Furious at how stupid she had been, Meryl left the NLBC early that day and walked down to the old Bernadelli offices. It was only then that she remembered she had wanted to get something from their vaults. She walked into the building and signed in as a visitor. After speaking to the sectary at the desk she realized that of all her colleagues, only Mark still worked at the old office. That would be okay. He was enthusiastic for tales of Vash the Stampede, she could buy him off with a few beers and a good tale. This was going to be a little simpler than she thought. Mark met her in the elevator hall.

"This way." He grinned and waved her after him before even greeting her.

A little startled, she hurried after him down the stairs, back down the three flights she had bypassed taking the lift, and then down another into the basement. He keyed the code into the vault as if he had known she had wanted to go there, and walked along beside her among the stacks of filing cabinets.

"Meryl!" He breathed. "Have you any idea what people are saying?"

"Er, no?"

Mark stood looking at her for a long time.

"He's not dead, then, is he?"

Meryl let out a long sigh.

"I don't know." She said and her voice caught at the end.

Mark's frantic expression relaxed slightly.

"Ah, so that wasn't a conspiracy to help Vash the Stampede to vanish?"

"What? No!"

"So where is he?"

"I don't know." Meryl said exhausted.

"Then why are you here?"

Meryl sighed.

"I had a fallout with my boss. My feet brought me here." She paused as she remembered something. "I would like to look up something, would you be able to access it?"

"I can try." Mark said. "It depends what it is."

"The ship logs of the Seeds Ship coded #22974."

"We've insured a ship?" Mark sounded incredulous. "We don't insure a single plant, let alone a whole ship."

"No, we insured certain projects for Rescue and Restoration. They were working on that ship at the time and that file should have what I am looking for."

"Okay. Let's see what we can find."

Meryl took Mark out for a beer that afternoon and filled him in on several of Vash's antics that they hadn't caught on film. That night she went home and read "The Report on Tessla." She knew she had seen the name before. She did not sleep that night and wished more than ever that she was certain Vash was alive. She wanted nothing more than to find him and hug him for all he was worth.

It took Meryl two weeks of aimlessly wondering around the NLBC studios, taking odd jobs with whoever needed assistance, to realize that she was completely unwanted. Her mind was so occupied with the Tessla report she had not noticed at first. However, as the fresh horror dimmed slightly she became aware that they had not called her in to discuss new ideas, or even to ask her to pack up and leave. They had just left her in limbo to be worn down by the system. The latest chore was typing transcripts. She detested it, but it kept her on the payroll. Milly, she knew, was not faring any better, as they always had some excuse not to allow her any camera work. She had seen her partner cleaning up sound stages at the end of the day.

She went and found Milly one lunch break.

"Let's go down to the Black Cat Café." It was a music hall where they went to laugh at the songs, and eat too much ice-cream. It was also a good place to talk things over in private. There were a number of booths along the walls, and enclosed ones upstairs for those who needed greater privacy. They watched the dancers on stage and listened to the latest saucy number doing the rounds. So far no one had been pulled off stage, which was half the entertainment. When a comedian walked out onto stage to deliver his clever speech, Meryl lent over to her partner.

"I've had an idea, Milly. I want to know what you think of it."

"Oh I'm glad you've also come to a decision Meryl. I thought of it the first day I was back."

"You did?" Meryl asked, startled.

"We've got to find a way to go after Mister Vash." Milly explained. "And the best way to do that is to be working for ourselves."

Meryl stared. She had not been quite so honest with herself, but that was the summary of it. Somehow thinking about him when she was not anywhere near him made her unbearably anxious.

"So what is your idea?" Milly asked.

"I was thinking, I have a bit saved up, enough to keep me for a year. But we could try and set up a charity, or something to help people like Vash."

"The independent plants?" Milly mused. "I never thought of that. I always assumed that they're so powerful, they don't need help. But you are right. Willa needed that sort of help, so did that woman who handed Vash his children, and so did that plant we saw out in the desert. There are more of them now."

"So you like the idea?"

"It could work." Milly mused. "Only, make it a closed corporation, so we can take in funds other than donations. If they are plants, and they are like Mister Vash, then they will have their own professions. They might want to work for us while staying in their old professions."

"If they're like Vash, they'll have no money."

Milly considered this.

"That's true."

"But before we get any further than this, let us see what we can find out about the plants. I'm sure there are things we're missing knowing only one."

"Three." Milly corrected. "The twins."

* * *

Kasted City

There was a quiet place where he could go. He felt he needed quiet now. He carried Jasmine on his back and she slept fitfully. Doug was in a little better shape, but stumbled as he walked. He could see the city lights in the distance, but they would be too far for the children to make tonight. He turned off the road and hollowed out a ditch in the sand behind the rock, then lowered the twins into the hollow and covered them over with his brown ragged cloak. They would be invisible while they slept. He climbed up into the crack in the rock to watch for the night. How long had it been since he had not slept in snatches, starting awake in panic, only to check his surroundings. Johnston had not managed to track him, though he was aware that he was, as it seemed the hunters had gone ahead of him. He had enough friends in each town who would slip him food or give him a warning. For the past few weeks they had given him larger parcels and told him to flee east, and that a man with Johnston's description was hunting him. He put his head in his hands. It was not in his nature to hide like this, but he could not drag the children into what promised to be a fight to the death. He had such hopes for the quiet place.

It was two hours before dawn when he woke the children again. They were thirsty and sleepy, and Doug simply walked with his eyes shut while holding on to his coat, but they had to reach the city before daylight. He took the back streets, and found the house he was looking for on the outskirts of the city. It was one of the last homesteads to the west of the city, surrounded by a large yard. He knocked at the back door. There was no answer. He pushed the back door open and peered in. All was quiet.

"Are you sure you know the people who live here?" Doug asked suspiciously.

"Yes." He assured him. "Stay here."

They had to stay here now, it was becoming too light to move around outside.

He swiftly went through the house, but there was no one there. However, the original inhabitants were still living here, there were photographs, and the smell was the same. The faint spring scent of a girl, and a musty floral scent of an older woman. He went back to the kitchen. Of course, the twins had not stayed put. They were out in the parlour, staring at the photographs on the mantelpiece.

They both pointed to a central photograph which had two women in it, and himself.

"That's you before your hair went black." Jasmine picked up the picture and compared them.

"You look so different with long hair." Doug tilted his head to one side. "Can we stay here?"

"Yes."

"Then can we please have a drink of water, I'm so thirsty!"

He wondered where everyone was. Ah well, he would just have to wait for them. He left the twins drinking water while he went hunted through the cupboards for other food. There were only raw supplies, not any made meals. Then that perhaps would be a welcome home gift, he would make breakfast. The twins watched him owlishly as he took out ingredients and fried rice. It did not take them long to work out how to operate the skittle, so while they occasionally burned their breakfast, he made bread, then set it to rise and cooked up flavoured toppings for the rice. The twins ate an entire bowl full they were so ravenous. He finished off an entire second batch all by himself. The bread was beginning to smell excellent in the oven, and when it came out they finished half of it simply because it smelled so good.

"How come you can cook so well?" Jasmine asked, putting her head on the table, sleepily.

"If you want to eat good food, you've got to learn to make it!" He said happily. "I've worked in more kitchens than I can count. I picked up a few tips."

"I'm sleepy." Doug yawned.

Vash looked through the window, it was early morning, and he could hear everyone beginning their days in the surrounding houses and streets. He was beginning to feel worried. Where were those who lived here?

"You can sleep through here." He took them through to the room they had once given him. To his great surprise nothing had changed. The twins removed their shoes and climbed into the bed, top to tail, Jasmine not even complaining that Doug got the pillow. He walked over to the cupboard and opened it and felt a strange sense of déjà vu. The clothes were as he had left them, how many years ago was it now? With the intent of remaining unnoticed, he shucked his red coat and hung it in the wardrobe. He pulled a shirt on over his leather body armour, then the loose workman's trousers which were connected by suspenders. He kept his boots on; none of the shoes in the bottom drawer were large enough to fit him. He went over to the dusty mirror in the hall and ran his hand roughly through his dark hair. It stood up and hung over his face in every which way. It was the best he could do.

He checked the twins, expecting at least one eye to be tracking his movements, but they were both sound asleep. He crept out the back door and went across to the neighbours, then decided against it. They knew him around here, by both his alias and his true name. He would ask in another place.

He had had no luck, mostly because he had not want to make himself known, and everyone he had glimpsed today he knew. He remained in the alleys, watching the sunrise to mid morning, the bells of the church rang out the time. It was as he watched the undertaker's ornate black cart pulled by a team of two tomas's that he had a sudden unsettling premonition. He turned and took a swifter detour through the narrow side alleys, until he arrived at the local church. There were a crowd of people milling around outside, and he knew every one of them very well. He had been right. He felt a strange heartache then as he slipped in at the side door of the church and stood in the deep doorway. A slender girl stood in the main aisle with a black shawl drawn around her. She stared up at the cross above the alter, hugging her arms around herself. Why was she all alone on this day? Where were those she counted as friends? Why was everyone outside the church just waiting for her? He walked around the row of pews and went to stand next to her.

She glanced up.

"Sorry, I'll be out now. I just want to be alone."

She turned away, her eyes full of tears. He stared at her in astonishment. In the years he had not been there, she had turned into a beauty. She was not yet fully grown, but he pitied the young men who chased her, they would have their hearts captivated and broken by her smile alone.

She turned to him with a frown.

"Sir, do you mind…" She blinked at him, her eyes taking in the clothes he wore and then stared directly into his face. Her eyes widened when they met his.

"Eriks." She whispered.

He had to take a step back to catch himself as she flung herself at him and burst into tears. He patted her head as he had done when she was younger and had hugged him for whatever whimsical reason took her fancy.

"Hello Lina."

She wiped her eyes, using a handkerchief quite delicately, he noticed. She must have been studying her manners; she was no longer the tomboy he remembered.

"Eriks." She whispered, her eyes widening in alarm as she glanced at the front door of the church.

"I won't come out with you." He murmured. "I'll wait for you at your house."

She bit her lip, tears pooling in her eyes and she shook her head, then reached out and touched him as if she could not believe it.

She reached out for his hand, then diverted the movement and twitched the empty sleeve of his left arm. He had removed the prosthetic when it had jammed and caused intensely painful feedback he had been unable to stop. It now was tucked into the bottom of his duffle bag.

"Oh, Eriks. What have you done to yourself this time?"

He grinned.

"A mountain dropped on me."

Her face fell.

"I'm fine!" He hastily assured her.

She put her hands on either side of his face.

"You're in trouble, aren't you?" There was too much girl in the woman's smile for him not to see the fear.

"As are you."

She nodded and lowered her hands.

"We'll meet later." She said and gave him a curtsey of all things, and hurried down the aisle.

* * *

Since leaving the NLBC, Meryl had rented a small office in down town December. It was on a quiet street, opposite a bakers and a second hand store. The bakers made doughnuts, and although Milly declared that they were good, she stealthily binned them whenever her old partner left her a box. It was partly because of the memory of the drugged doughnuts she had eaten with the twins, partly because _he_ loved them. She did not want to think about him too much. The nightmares were bothering her again, and it helped if she did not try think about Vash, as her thoughts always seemed to descend to the horrors instead of the kindness.

She turned back to the day's work. She was reading all the archived newspaper articles that mentioned plants, in particular, those that had been written since the Terrans had arrived. There was the same amount of misinformation as usual. But some shorter articles provided some insight. She found one dated three months after Vash and Knives had disappeared after the fight. She felt her heart leap as she recognised the title: 'Millions Knives sighted in December', it was the same article she had seen Vash reading that night.

She felt a chill trickle down her back. She had been in December at that time.

'Millions Knives, who so recently caused so much devastation on our world, was spotted in December last week. Eyewitnesses say he sported black hair as a disguise, and carried a semiautomatic rifle. He held up one of the smaller banks in the outskirts of the city and made off with the money in the cashiers safes. Certain confirmation that he was Knives came from the reports of the banks cashiers. When shot, he sprouted strange wings to shield his body and dodged the bullets. His current location is unknown, but the Terran authorities have assured the people of December that they will continue the search for the 'rogue plant' Knives. They warn that free walking plants with black hair are facing their 'last run' and are prone to insanity. Mr Johnston, spokesman of the Terran Plant Engineers, states that his team will be swift to deal with Knives, when they find him.'

Her head felt like it was an empty chamber with a single name clanging through it. Johnston. She had met him three times, though she had thought him a No Man's Land Marshal. However, his job description in the paper was possibly more accurate, as the last they had encountered him he had sent a Terran plant assassin after Vash. She folded her hand into a clenched fist. So that was the way he did things? He chased down rogue plants, and sent his assassins after them and killed them. He had done to Willa, to the plant that had left Vash his kids, and tried with the plant in the desert. It made sense now why the Earth Federation Peace Force seemed to be all over the place. They were trying to chase down their own people, and keep it hushed up.

The problem was what the town's folk had told her about Willa, and what the article said did not add up. They had not said that she was insane. People knew what insanity was out here. So, perhaps that was a convenient excuse, to pursue and murder plants. However, it seemed they were after plants with black hair. What difference did that make? She knew a little of what Knives and Vash had gone through to reach that stage in their lives, and since acquiring the Terran ship manifests, she knew that none of the Terran plants had arrived with black hair. Therefore, their hair had changed after they had arrived. Not surprising, they probably had to use all their wit and power simply to stay alive on No Man's Land. It was not an easy place for those used to a sheltered life. That line of reasoning did not quite ring true, though, because it would follow that the human Terrans should be dying at a faster rate trying to survive than the plants could use up their power.

She made a note to research that, though her gut feel was that excessive Terran deaths would have been mentioned in the newspapers she read each week.

All she knew for now was that Johnston was persistent and deadly. Vash was in danger, and he had known it and kept it from her. She put her head in her hands feeling her insides shrivel with remorse and regret. She had been a useful pawn, allowing whoever watched the program to track him. No, worse, if they had watched all the footage that had not made it into the program, they would by now have a good idea of his habits and nature. She had destroyed the wall of secrecy and misinformation around him that had kept him safe. She clenched her fists into her hair. She wanted nothing more than to go and find him and explain it all to him, to make sure he was safe. She laughed wryly at herself. He could look after himself. More than that, he could get into horrendous situations and look after himself.

Milly came in with a box of doughnuts, they smelled fresh. She held out the article to her friend.

"Meryl." Milly whispered. "It's nearly a year since that came out."

"I know. I saw Vash with this article, only I did not know what it said. I think he is looking for Knives."

"Meryl, I don't think Mister Knives is the one we need to worry about. Marshal Johnston seems to be the worst problem, he's a horrible man. How does he manage to track all those plants?"

"Milly." Meryl said, her voice going soft as an idea occurred to her. "I think I have found a way to make this business work."

"Mmmh?" Milly helped herself to a doughnut.

"We gather information, then sell it to the right people for a good price."

"Like private investigators?" Milly smiled.

"Not quite. We'll specialise. We'll deal with plant related incidents."

"You mean we're back touring the Outer?" Milly's smile broadened.

Meryl ruefully shook her head, oh she so badly wanted to get out there, but she felt the time was not right.

"No. Not yet. We need to become established first, get a few local cases, see what the job is actually like before setting off. I think we should go and interview a certain bank manager and his staff. I want to know all they can tell me about 'Knives'."

* * *

Vash sat in the front parlour waiting for Lina. He dozed in the large chair he had sat in while he had stayed with them. From what he had gleaned, it had been her grandfather's smoking chair. It was late afternoon when he woke. He had been dozing all day. He had roused the twins for lunch, and they had gone back to bed. They were still sleeping off the trauma and exhaustion, as he had not had any sass from them. He stood up and stretched, feeling all the hundreds of uncomfortable complaints ripple across his skin, then lighten up to a more comfortable feeling after he relaxed.

It was already afternoon. What had happened to Lina? The uneasy sense of dread clutched around his heart. He checked the children they were both sleeping. He took his coat from the cupboard, then sneaked out and drew the door shut. As he did so, he saw that Jasmine was awake but watching her brother sleep. She slipped out of the bed and gave him a hug when he crouched down at the door.

"I need you and Doug to stay here." He told her in a low voice.

She clung tighter.

"I will be back, but something has happened, I must go."

She released him and hunched slightly, her pale blue eyes reflecting her attempts to contain her worry.

"Don't follow me. Just wait here, okay?"

"Don't die." She whispered hoarsely.

He smiled broadly.

"I'm good at not dying." He patted her small shoulder with confidence.

"So was mom."

Her words gutted him. He put his hand on her head, trying to keep the helplessness inside.

"Just stay here." He murmured.

She folded her arms and gave a single nod, making his hand dip.

"Good girl."

To his astonishment, she gave him a resolute smile. Somehow, that drove the helplessness from his heart and he found a new, stronger determination in its place. He felt his face break into a smile in response.

"Thank you."

He had left the workman's clothes over the back of the large chair. His coat was bullet proof and by the dread he felt he would need it. He walked to the church, not bothering to take the side alleys. When he arrived, it was all shut up and there were no people there. The streets were oddly empty, and those people that were about so studiously ignored him that he knew it was deliberate. However, some did double takes and stared after him, before rapidly disappearing into their houses and barring the windows and the doors. Only one fool darted out with a gun. He had merely glanced over his shoulder for the man to consider his options and to retreat. It was as if he were a gang lord strolling through conquered territory. He felt a strange terror clutch at his heart. What had happened?

He reached the graveyard on the far side of the city and the circling buzzards told him all he needed to know. He entered the graveyard at a run, and headed for the birds. The grave was freshly dug, and the stone marker said 'Sheryl... beloved ... grandmother...' The rest of the sign had been broken off. So it had been Lina's grandmother, he had not guessed wrong. A glint of reflected light caught his eye and he picked up a locket its chain broken. He opened it, inside was a photograph of himself and in the other side was a lock of blond hair. He snapped it shut and buried it deep in his pocket, profoundly grateful no one was around. He wiped at his eyes, for some reason it touched him deeply, and at the same time the sentiment it portrayed was very intimate. He could not approach it without feeling embarrassed, not from shame, but the shock that someone cared that much. Had it been Lina's?

He took in the rest of the scene. There were boot prints in the grave dirt and some scuffle had happened here. There were strips of torn material hanging over a neighbouring grave marker. He recognised the remains of the shawl that Lina had been wearing. And blood. In a widening circle from the grave itself were corpses, attracting the buzzards. He hurried over to them, but they had bled out long before he had arrived. The blood was already drying in the sun. None had survived. He felt anguish and a sickening guilt clutch at his heart; he had been sitting in the house while this had happened, oh, why had he not gone with Lina? She had said she was in trouble, but he never dreamed it to be this bad. What had happened here? Why had these people died? What about Sheryl's death had caused this massacre? Was it linked to how afraid the people were?

He followed the trail of corpses, feeling his fury rising. He loped across the desert sands, nine corpses, the tenth he could see in the distance. He leaped down the dune and crouched down beside a man shorter and fatter than the others, and felt his breath catch. He knew this man; he had defended Lina from him all those years ago. He turned him on his side, and winced at the stomach wound.

"You?" The man croaked hoarsely.

He felt shock thrill through him, but contained it. The man was alive, looking through his small piggy eyes, now bloodshot and unfocussed.

"W-what have you done with Lina?" He felt his voice go flat then oddly ragged on her name.

"You have got to believe me!" The man's voice shook in terror. "I couldn't stop them. I tried to stop them. I tried to protect her. I promise. Don't kill me."

Horrified that he even thought that, Vash put a hand on his shoulder; the man was clammy and cold to the touch, even in this heat. He was dying.

"I'm not going to kill you." He assured the man who gritted his jaw resolutely. He dug out the tape and gauze he always kept in his pockets. He taped up the man's wound as best he could, then helped him up.

"Why are you doing this?" The man croaked as they staggered across the dune back down to the road.

"You are going to live." Vash snapped at him. "Get to the hospital. I must go after Lina."

"Alone?" He breathed, incredulously. "You might be Vash the Stampede, but they have more than one of you."

"Huh?"

"You're a plant, Lina said you were. She said that the others out there were nothing on you. But they are crazy like you, they can be shot without dying, no one can stand up to them."

"Others?"

He coughed and blood trickled out of the side of his mouth.

"Others!" The man roared, his fury powerful, but his delivery a breathy gasp. "Who do you think took Lina? They know she knew you. They came three months ago, demanding information. We saw them off the small holding several times; I lost half my gang in the last raid. And I lost most of the rest of them here! All to protect her so she could protect you!"

Vash felt the bottom fall out of his world. It was as though he were free falling with nothing to catch him, not even solid ground to kill him if he hit it. The air took on a thick, cloying nature as he struggled to breath. They had Lina. They had taken Lina because of him. Because she would protect him. Had he not told her he would protect her?

"Quit crying, you fool!" The short man clutched at his arm, though his grip was weak, and his bloody fingers slipped on the cloth. "Their hideout is half an ile beyond the flying rock!"

Vash raised his head and fished out his glasses from his pocket and put them on.

"Get to hospital." He told the man as he felt feeling of fiery determination rise over the anguish and terror in his broken heart. He turned and sprinted off along the road.


	13. Chapter 13

_**Chapter 13**_

The flying rock was a cantilevered rock, a landmark half an ile east of Kasted city. He passed two more corpses on the way, feeling the same sickening wrench to his gut each time. They had died to defend him, no, a mere memory of him! He did not need it, nor did he in any way deserve it. Nevertheless, they had done it. Tears slipped down his face, uncontrollably. He spotted the trail of blood and foot print dented sand, and ran on.

The hideout was an old water station, disused for years now, since the pipe line from the city had been hijacked too many times and the officials had cut it off. Travellers would have to enter the city to buy water there. It was a good place for a bandit hideout, flat ground for fifty yarz around it, and high narrow windows, which were perfect for sniping from within the building. There was no way to hide his approach, and the way he was feeling now, there was no way he wanted to.

He walked slowly, watching as a buzz of activity began after the spotter on the roof saw him. Gun muzzles from revolvers to fully automatic machine guns bristled from the windows. He stopped just within the range of his own revolver.

"Where is Lina?"

A scream gave him the answer he needed. There was a scuffle and gunshots inside, then a hand appeared at one of the narrow windows on the ground floor.

"Get out of here! They want to kill you..." Lina's voice was cut off and an eerie silence fell.

It was the tense silence before the battle, the deceptive calm before the storm.

No, he was not going to let them take pot shots at him this time. He had had enough of playing games and dodging bullets. He closed his eyes and raised his revolver as a thunderous deluge of weapon fire clashed and conflicted as they tried to all shoot him. Lina screamed suddenly, and all his strategy went out of the window. That was not a scream of terror; it was a scream of pain.

He whipped out his hand, snatching a grenade from the air and threw it back at the water station. The walls cracked as the explosive hit the roof. He sprinted over, dodging the falling building and leaping through the broadening cracks. He snatched up a machine gun as his revolver clicked empty and with furious precision, disabled all the guns pointed in his direction. The men suddenly yelled and fled further into the station. He gaped at them, stunned; he had not known he had struck such a terrifying figure. There was a slight click at his feet. He looked down.

"Aaaahh!" He screamed and then tore after the fleeing men as a second grenade went off, collapsing half the station. He grabbed the first bandit he overtook.

"Where is Lina?"

"Mmmh!" The man tried to wriggle out of the headlock. Vash realised he was holding him too tightly. He released him slightly, frustrated that he always over compensated with strength when he was fighting one handed. "The boss has her." The man choked in panic.

"Where?"

"I dunno!" The man had chosen to wet himself over fainting. Vash released him and he tore back the way he had come in, he had seen Lina in these very rooms, now destroyed. Where was she now?

He leaped down over the broken rubble, staggering to gain his balance as it shifted and settled under his feet. There were stunned and unconscious thugs lying amidst the debris, but no Lina. Panicked, he searched the sands, then a movement caught his eye and he looked up to the ragged remains of the second floor. There, silhouetted against the double suns, stood three figures. Lina hung limply, unconscious. He looked away; they had torn her clothes so that only strips of cloth hung from her, not enough to cover anything. Holding her was a stranger with black hair and icy blue eyes, though his face was bloodied and scratched and his clothing torn. It seemed that Lina had given as good as she got. The third made his blood run cold. It was Ezrah, the plant who had tried to kill him, the one the twins had used their powers against to protect him. Oddly, Ezrah stood with a gun to the head of the man with black hair.

"We meet again, Vash the Stampede. I must say, you have impressed me beyond what I dared to expect. You not only fight like a demon, you are deceptive and tricksome and, I discovered quite by accident, loyal. They said you fought for the world, as if altruism were your virtue, but no man walks the world alone."

He made a show of cocking the revolver in his hand. Vash felt his blood run cold. He knew that gun. It had once belonged to his brother. Knives. What had happened to Knives? He could not think straight. Knives was wilier than he was, and had a blatant disregard for the lives of others, what blood bath had Ezrah had to walk through to gain that gun? The dismay and uncertainty tore at him.

"Do you not recognise this man?" Ezrah asked, his eyes narrowing and for the first time, uncertainty flashed in them.

He looked at the man in torn clothes who was holding Lina. He had blue eyes and dark hair, but despite that faint resemblance to his brother, was no person he knew.

"No."

Without warning Ezrah fired. The man toppled forward, dropping Lina. Vash leaped forward and awkwardly grabbed Lina out of the air and kicked out his leg to break the fall of the man. They landed in a painful heap on the rubble. Vash hastily pulled off his coat and threw it over Lina, he then crouched over the other man. He was a plant. Like he was. But he was dying. Vash checked the wound and found the entry point; the bullet had gone right through the brain. A sudden cascade of images flashed through his mind as he touched him and the man's eyes sprang open.

"Get away!" He gasped; his accent was a Terran one.

"Who are you?" He breathed.

"Let him think I'm Knives. It'll be your only way to escape."

Ezrah leaped down and the stranger grabbed at Vash's arm.

"I won't be able to hold him, but I can hurt him enough to give you a month's head start. Now go!"

Escape? The man was dying and he wanted to protect him? Vash felt his heart clench in distress. No. He refused to be protected. He was not worth the lives of others. He knew that much. And this man had perhaps a minute left of life, perhaps a chance at more if he had help. He blinked at his tears as he grabbed at the rags the man wore and tied a ragged bandage around his head. The man gave him a groggy stare of incomprehension. Vash then stood up and faced Ezrah.

"Why did you shoot him?" His voice cracked as the deep sorrow and pain flooded his heart.

The uncertainty vanished from Ezrah's face.

"Ah."

He raised Knives's revolver and Vash simply stared at him. He felt the heat of the suns on his bare shoulders and the stench of blood and gunpowder. No, best to think of the suns, it was the more beautiful thought.

He fired and Vash dodged, feinting a fall, then he swung his leg to kick in Ezrah's knees. But the man moved as swiftly as he did, firing the gun and leaping. Vash dove at him, but had to skid to change course as the revolver fired again, that brought the total to three shots, and by the sound of it, the chamber only had two left.

He nearly tripped over the fallen man who claimed his brother's name and landed awkwardly between him and Lina. Ezrah stepped over the man and raised the revolver to his head.

"At least you brothers will be together in hell." Ezrah's finger tightened on the trigger as the fallen man reached up and grabbed his leg. A lancing light of pure white energy blazed around them both and Ezrah screamed and twisted, trying to get free. But the icy fire in his opponents eyes reflected an insanity beyond the confines of mortal madness. Ezrah tried to counter the white blazing fire, which consumed all materials it touched, and there were damp flickering explosions, but he could not get free.

"No!" Vash yelled, stumbling back, shocked. The dying man was using the last of his power to stop Ezrah. He reached for them, then realised how useless that was. If he did not get out of here with Lina now, neither of them would survive.

He gathered her awkwardly with one arm and slung her over his shoulder, still bundled in his coat. He leaped down as fast as he could run, the bandits who had held the place had started running as the first dazzling light had arced over the broken water station.

He made it to the road before the concussion of the explosion knocked him sprawling. He picked himself out of the sand, as the sky suddenly seemed to darken and he felt heat sear his exposed skin. He blinked as his eyes readjusted. The station was no more. He then noticed several men sprawled unconscious on the sand dunes, they would come round soon enough and he had to get Lina back to town. He went over to where she had fallen and twitched his coat back over her.

"You came."

He stopped rummaging in his pocket for a new round for his revolver and gazed at her face.

She was smiling slightly. He did not know why she looked so happy to see him.

"Too late." His voice cracked as he spoke.

"No, you saved me." She breathed, still smiling.

He found the round and loaded his revolver. He did not deserve that smile.

She sat up shakily and made to climb out of his coat then realised she was stark naked under it. She hastily hugged it back around herself and blushed crimson.

"Can you stand?" He asked.

"Of course I can!" She snapped at him. Then winced and turned away as if ashamed at her outburst. She took out her self-consciousness on the coat.

She fidgeted with the material, then stuck her arms through the arms of his coat, and shoved up his long right sleeve so her small hand could reach the buttons, then did up enough as she required for modesty. She tried to stand, and stepped on the tails that dragged a few feet in the dust.

"Why do you have to be so tall?" She demanded irritably and picked up the front tails of his coat as if it were a ball gown. "I feel like a child in my dad's coat."

She stared up at him, and he saw her realise what she had said, then she blushed bright red again and fixed her gaze on the ground. He pretended that he did not see her awkwardness, and that he himself did not feel the same awkwardness ten times over.

"We need to get you to hospital." He said, breaking the moment with relief.

"Hah! Eriks, you need it more than I!" She pranced away for a few steps, then slowed and limped.

He walked beside her, eyeing the men on the dunes, they were beginning to move. Lina was limping worse than ever. Oh no, he was going to have to say this.

"Lina. It's an ile to the city. We won't make it with them after us, but if you climb on my back I'll get us as far as I can run."

She must be hurting worse than she let on, he realised, as she mutely climbed onto his back without protest.

They made it back to the city. Vash was surprised that no pursuit tailed them, perhaps they had taken out more of the gang in the explosion than he had realised. Exhausted, he made it to the hospital. After having several grazes taped up and a salve put on for the strange sunburn the blast light had given his shoulders and neck; he went to check on Lina. She was hugging his coat while sitting on the bed in a hospital gown.

"I can go." She asked the nurse. "He's with me."

The nurse was not one he recognised; the nurse who had patched him up had made it quite clear that he was not entirely welcome.

"Ah." The nurse peered up at him. "If you trust him, I'm glad you have someone with you."

Lina leaped off the bed and shrugged the coat back on over the hospital gown.

"I'll bring this back later, okay?"

"Sure Lina. Try not get into any more scraps with the stupid boys, alright?"

"Okay."

"Stupid boys?" He asked as they walked down the hospital steps. "What story did you tell her?"

"Only that the local guys caught me and tried to rape me." She said with aplomb. "I've had such things happen before, so they're used to my antics. I could not tell them that I'd just been held hostage so that they could call you out of hiding. They'd burn down my house."

"Oh." He felt ill. "Did they..." He could not finish his sentence.

"Rape me?" She spat in the dust on the street. "No. The blond ape wanted the black haired idiot to. He tried at first, but I gave him other ideas, mostly about him keeping his hands over his nuts so I could not knee them again. Then he grabbed me and told me he was an ally of yours and that he needed my cooperation. I was only faking unconsciousness. Do you know how hard it was not to scream when he dropped me?"

Vash gaped at her.

"Who was he?"

"I don't know who either of them was. But the one with black hair sure hated the blond guy. Said he had forced him to the 'last run' whatever that was. Said it so bitterly too. He wasn't your brother was he?"

"No. That wasn't Knives." But he had had Knives's gun. Something had happened to Knives. It was odd, he felt worried, but he did not feel the instinctive gut wrenching terror he felt when he knew his brother was in real danger. They had always had a deeper connection that way, and for now, he felt he could trust it. Or perhaps it was his imagination, he simply wanted to hope that he was still alive, and the hope dreamed him safe.

They approached the house and checked the room where he had left the twins. He saw two blond heads duck away from the window as he did so. Lina put out her hand to stop him.

"There is someone in the house."

He smiled.

"You mentioned you had a little trouble." He said. "This is mine."

"Ericks, they were children." She stared at the window where the twins were peering out again; they darted away when they saw they were being watched.

"They look just like you, before..." She whispered, touching her own hair. "When did you have kids? Before we met? I didn't know you had a wife. Why do you have them now?"

"No. It's not like that." He explained. "They're my kids, as in my responsibility. I couldn't save their mother."

"So, ah, biologically, they're not yours?" Her face turned red.

"Th-, they are plants like I am." He said. "That's why I can't hand them over to an orphanage. We're quite different from humans when we're young."

They had stopped walking, and were standing in the dusty yard in front of the house.

"Are you plants really so different?" She asked curiously.

Had she not seen the power display earlier? Or had she been lying when she said she had faked unconsciousness.

"Only we've heard bad reports about plants with black hair. Is it true? That you can use up all your life force and then go crazy?"

"Perhaps some do." He said. The plant with black hair who had attacked Ezrah had been surprisingly calculating in his final use of power. He would not have considered that insanity.

"We're not all that different." He assured her, ignoring the expression of incredulity on her face and pleaded his case on the points he felt she should know. "We're all people. But you know some folk make an issue of the differences."

"Is that why you came to me?" She whispered, a strange kind of terror entering her eyes. "Eriks, er, Vash, I cannot help you with them. I have problems of my own."

"I understand that." He smiled. "But if you could give us a week's shelter, we've been through some rough times, they need to recover."

She put her hands over her mouth.

"I can't even give you that."

"Lina?" He leaned forward, the years vanishing between them, as she suddenly looked self-conscious and gave him a furious scowl. "What else is wrong?"

* * *

Lina turned away, every time he gave her that look she felt like she was twelve again. But that very same expression was the most comforting one in the world. He cared. It was not like Mrs Guddage the neighbor who nosily asked her about her troubles and helped only when she thought she needed it. No, he really cared and helped her beyond what she ever expected. This was the second time he had risked his life for her. It was that, mostly, what terrified her about him, his willing friendly hope that he seemed to offer without regard for himself.

She glanced back at him. He was standing watching the two faces at the window. They were very beautiful children with such pale hair and blue eyes. She felt pain stab through her heart. All he asked in return for helping her was for a week so that the children would be safe. She sighed softly, that request, in a strangely confused kind of way, made the decision easier. She would have to sell the house.

* * *

The twins had hidden under the bed when Vash had gone in to look in on them. So he had retreated to the parlour with Lina leaving it up to them to come out when they wished. He was glad he was sitting when she dropped the bombshell.

"$$10 000?" Vash exclaimed. "Oh man, who has that kind of money?"

She kicked him, but with none of her usual fervour. She hastily tucked her foot back under her chair, suddenly too conscious of the act. She had given him back his coat, and now wore a dress and boots. He was amused to see how she had subtly changed; it was as if the dress allowed her to assume a more demure persona.

"It's not my fault!" She exclaimed. "Grandma made a mistake with the money lenders. I only found out when she fell ill and they came around calling for money. I went to the bank and grandma is $$ 5 000 overdrawn and they won't let me touch her account until I can repay that money!"

"$$15 000?" He breathed. "What was that you said about money lenders?"

"Listen the first time Ericks!" She lectured him, her foot twitching to kick him, but her newly learned manners halting her. It was an interesting stage, the conscious decision to be an elegant woman, when ones nature was far wilder.

"So how are you able to keep this place?" He asked, bewildered.

"It's in grandfathers name, or it was until yesterday when grandma died. But now, unless I pay off the bank and the money lenders, it will revert to the repo man and I'm out on the street, worse, I'll owe people money." She folded her arms around her chest again as if trying to hold herself together.

"No, you misunderstood, I was asking if you had a job."

She scowled at him.

"Don't laugh."

"I won't."

"I'm a music hall dancer."

He could not help himself, the chuckles escaped. She leaped up and smacked him across the shoulder, then kicked his ankle. Her fit over, she backed off and rubbed at her eyes.

"I only got the job because the manager has been trying to make me his mistress for the past three months. He's a cretin and I had to put up with him because I needed the money for grandma's medicine."

"He didn't?" He felt his voice go flat.

She smiled, pleased at his defensiveness.

"No, but he tried a few times. I learned a few tricks from you." She stamped her toe and a thin dirk slid out an inch from her shoe. She gave it an odd sideways tap and it slotted back into the toe. "It's saved me at least five times. Thank you."

He was surprised at the gentle way she fluffed his hair. He stood up and grinned at her.

"It seems to me, Lina, that you and I have to go and pay certain gentlemen a few courtesy calls."

Her face fell.

"But you can't! You have a bounty on your head. If anyone in this town knows you are here, you are dead. I can't lose you; you're the only family I have left!"

"Family?" He said, astonished.

"You lump." She elbowed him in the ribs. "You're the only father I've ever had."

He sat looking through the old accounts trying to work out exactly what was owed to whom. Lina's grandmother had been meticulous, but Lina less so. She seemed to believe in the money in money out method he himself employed. He had taken up half of the kitchen table while she had decided to make cake to celebrate his arrival. He could see she was desperately trying to distract herself from thinking about her sorrow or her problems.

Doug was the first one out of the room and he came and peered over his shoulder with some interest. After he made several pertinent remarks, Vash handed the boy the pen and watched with a quiet pride as the boy devoured the accounts. He wrote up summaries and balances, and kept a running total of mistakes and notes of problems. Jasmine drifted in and stared at Lina with some curiosity, but shyly went to stand beside her brother until Lina asked her to beat the cream.

"You've got to whip it till your arm hurts, and then whip it some more, until it thickens." Vash explained seeing the faint panic on her face.

"I can do that." Jasmine said and pointed at him. "What's his job?"

"He can sit there for now." Lina said. "He cooks better than I do, we don't want him showing me up with you two as guests, do we?"

Jasmine laughed.

"See here." Doug pointed out on his list of discrepancies. "The house was paid off years ago. Things started to go bad when this," he fished out a receipt, "Mister Edvers came into the office. He started increasing the interest incrementally, until what you were paying was the increasing interest on the loan rather than the loan itself."

Lina stared at him, the spoon she was stirring with dripped sticky icing onto the cake.

"How old are you?" She whispered.

Doug glanced at Vash.

"She knows, you can tell her the truth." He said.

"We are ten months." He said.

Lina's mouth dropped open.

"You said she knew." Doug said accusingly. "We're ten years old."

Lina frowned at Vash.

"I never realised how different. I understand now."

Doug fidgeted.

"What do human children do at a ten months?" He asked curiously.

Lina laughed.

"They are still little babies, their mothers have to carry them and feed them."

He considered this information.

"Then it is fortunate that we are plants, or we would not have survived."

"What happened?" Lina asked, shocked.

He looked down at the table.

"When we were seven months, our mother was killed. Vash saved us."

Lina's eyes widened apologetically, remembering too late.

"My grandmother died yesterday." She said softly. "If you like we can eat cake for dinner and sit around telling the beautiful stories we remember."

"Mom always had pretty hair." Doug said, not looking up.

"She told us to give more than we took." Jasmine added.

"I'm trying." Doug patted the pages with the flat of his hand. "It is clear that someone has been cooking the books. But the rest will have to be handled by the lawyer and the accountancy firm."

Lina laughed ruefully.

"Out here we only have the money lenders and the bank." She said. "Matters like that are settled by demanding satisfaction."

"Satisfaction?"

"Challenge them to a duel, if we win, no more debt."

Vash found three pairs of eyes staring at him. He looked behind him.

"Someone here had better be good with a duelling pistol!"

Doug laughed.

"Do you know what he did the last time he was here?" Lina asked with a mischievous glint in her eye.

* * *

Stuffed full of cake and rather too much icing, they had pulled all the mattresses into his old room. The idea had been to talk past midnight and then sleep. Vash found himself awake at ten to midnight, listening to the house creak amid the soft chorus of snores. Somehow he had ended up in the middle with everyone around him. He could not sleep. It was too hot for one thing. He slipped carefully out of bed and grabbed his bag and boots. He hastily pulled his clothes on in the hall and then had to sneak back in to grab his coat. He saw Lina open her eyes and signed desperately for her to remain where she was. If she moved she would wake the twins. She mouthed, 'come back,' and closed her eyes again.

He slipped out of the house and stood against the door, watching the moonlit street. He could leave the twins with Lina for a while. He leaped down into the road and shook himself. It had been too long since it was just him and the horizon ahead of him. Almost all of his energy went into worrying about those kids. Man, it was exhausting.

He went down to the local hospital, the emergency room staff stared at him wide eyed when he walked in.

"It's Eriks!" A nurse gasped.

He relaxed; at least the emergency staff remembered him with more affection than most.

"Eriks is looking mighty like Vash the Stampede these days." A voice growled behind him.

He turned and grinned down at the very man he wanted to meet, the chief surgeon. The man peered at him through square glasses. "Lost your arm again?"

"Yes. I'd like a replacement." It would be a regular prosthetic, but it would be better than nothing.

"And you smile about it." The surgeon said fondly. "Come on."

He walked an ile out into the desert, flexing and testing his arm out the whole way. It was a decent model, responsive and hardwearing. Nothing on his old prosthetic, but it helped having two arms. He set up the target, then practiced drawing and firing until the sweat ran and he had a smooth enough motion to satisfy him. Then he walked across to the place where the water station had been. He gathered up what weapons had survived the blast, and then hiked up the fallen rubble to the last place he had seen Ezrah and the man who had claimed his brother's name. After some searching amid the rubble, the top parts of it made glassy by the blast, he found it. He picked up Knives's gun and tucked it into his belt. He would find out what had happened to his brother. He felt oddly sad as he stood with an armload of weapons, on top of the blast site. He simply could not think of how anyone could have got around Knives. However, if they had captured Knives, who on this planet could stand against them? It all came down to Johnston. Why was he hunting the plants with black hair? What was his real agenda?

He made it back to the house, dumped the guns in the laundry basket in the corner, and took a bath in the kitchen before anyone got up. He crawled back into bed as the first sun touched the horizon, and slept.


	14. Chapter 14

_**Chapter 14**_

It was the gunshot that woke him. He went from sleep to standing instinctively, his hand closing over nothing on his hip. Oh crap, he was wearing his pyjamas, not his gun. He snatched up his revolver from where it hung over the end of the bed and hurried to the front door.

Things just went downhill from there. Lina and the twins were in the yard holding what looked like Lina's personal collection of revolvers and pistols, one in each hand. Did the twins even know how to fire them? He walked out, barefoot, onto the hot dusty road. There were some rather familiar faces among the thugs. He knew some from the fight yesterday, and others were older acquaintances from when he had last been in town. Several of them took one look at him, blanched and quietly excused themselves from the encounter. Their fellows, noticing this, peered at him with greater anxiety.

"Aw man." He complained as he strode passed Lina and planted himself in front of them. "You woke me from my beauty sleep. Now I'm gonna be ugly for the rest of the day!"

"You're gonna be ugly the rest of your life!"

Ah, so their spokesman was a tall man with a pot belly and several gold earrings in his left ear.

"And you wanna know how long that's gonna be? Start counting the seconds. Ten, nine…"

"That's unusual." He yawned and rubbed his eyes. "Don't you want to know who you are challenging?"

"Why would I want to know your name bed head?"

He smiled slightly.

"Why not ask the half of your gang that has guessed it, oh, but they are not here."

The man glanced back, his face falling as he saw that more than half of his men had deserted. He turned to Vash with wide eyes.

"Who the hell is he?" He demanded from those behind him.

"He doesn't look so sleepy on the wanted posters boss." One of the men remarked.

"Wanted?" The skinny man drew himself up, his belly quivering. "What's his bounty?"

"Sixty billion double dollars, boss."

There was silence then the skinny man cracked up, his belly wobbling like jelly.

"Vash the Stampede, you're telling me that he's Vash the Stampede." He wiped his eyes, and then hesitated when he realised none of his men had laughed along with him. His face went slightly pale. "He's really Vash the Stampede?"

There was a long silence as Vash scratched at his hair and scuffed the dust with his toes and the pot bellied gunman stared at him.

"Well, are you?" He demanded.

Vash smiled.

"Aw, do I hav'ta? I suppose I have to say it is my name." He laughed, slightly embarrassed.

The man drew his revolver and Vash placed his bare foot carefully on the sand that he had cleared of stones.

"Why are you bothering my friends?" He asked, glancing back at Lina who was trying to order the twins back to the house and failing.

"This is our house, we are the eviction squad."

"Ah. That would certainly explain things. Unfortunately, I require this house, its keepers and its contents for my personal use. We will have to come to some agreement."

"The only agreement I do with evictions is 'tenants out', dead or alive doesn't particularly bother me."

"There again, we have a problem, friend."

"Are you trying to make me draw on you?"

"You already have." He nodded towards the revolver, which was tracking his slight movements as he shifted from foot to foot.

The tall man surprisingly holstered his gun.

"We'll be back with the full eviction squad at noon!" He declared then with a decisive wave at his men, marched off down the road.

Vash watched them go and blew out a breath. He glanced around at the neighbours who were giving him more hostile looks than the gang had.

"Hello!" He waved.

"Get out of town, you only make trouble!"

"Oh shut it you old bag!" Lina called. "Eriks get inside. You know how he saved this city last time. Get inside and quit your mean gossiping, all of you, before _I_ shoot you."

He walked in doors and the twins followed him.

"You faced them down in your pyjamas!" Doug said in awe.

"All peaceful like." He grinned. "That's the way to do it."

* * *

Lina pulled on her best dress and sat in front of the mirror and piled her hair up with pins. She had grown it long for the harvest dance, and had enjoyed the compliments, so had kept it long. Her grandmother had been pleased, saying it was time she grabbed herself a young man before all the good ones were gone. She remembered the snarky replies she would come up to that statement, though it made her sad to remember how earnest her grandmother had been. She tucked the last curl in and pinned it down. Her hair had been a hindrance when they had captured her. It had been too easy to control her by grabbing it. She glared at herself in the mirror. She refused to cut it, that would mean that they had thoroughly beaten her, made her utterly theirs. They could do what they liked to her body, but they could not take her soul. She glanced out of the bedroom window where Vash was supervising the twins who were feeding slop to the tomas's. She had learned that lesson from him, and only now was beginning to understand the full extent of what he had gone through to keep living it.

She stood and inspected herself. There, she looked at least three years older than she was, not that that would fool anyone in this city. She gathered up the paperwork that Doug had given her and watched as the twins sprinted across the yard with the slop bucket as the tomas's broke loose. Drop the bucket, she said softly to herself. They aren't after you! But they clearly did not have that kind of experience, and both scrambled up the side of the coop and perched on top of the roof. The tomas's were milling around, flapping their useless wings and jumping at the bucket now just out of reach. Well, they were certainly as agile and fast as Vash was. He strode over to them coolly, took the bucket and got himself pecked and trampled for the effort. He bounded out of the sudden pecking mob yelling piteously, making the children laugh. She smiled. She had best go while they were all distracted. She did not want him to have to stand up to another mob.

She watched as the Sheriff, the banker and slimy git Edvers from the loan office went through the papers. They'd all been very surprised when she'd invited them down to the saloon for a drink, but she had each one by their weakness. Edvers had wondering hands, the banker needed her to repay her loan and the Sheriff owed his position to her grandfather's influence. He had been a young clerk when her grandfather had been sheriff, and her grandfather had suggested him for deputy.

"So, by my calculation, Edvers, you owe me twenty thousand double dollars." She said sweetly.

"This is not proof of anything." Edvers said disdainfully. "These could so easily be forged."

She turned to the banker and the sheriff.

"Are they? If so, you gentlemen stand to lose a great deal."

They had no backbone, she knew, and their curiosity and a free drink was the only reason they were here. But if she hit them where it hurt the most, their pride and their pockets, perhaps, just perhaps she did not need to sell the house.

"These are old, Lina." The sheriff said, and she knew with those words that she had utterly lost. "No one is alive who can verify the signatures or those of the witnesses."

"You knew my grandfather!" She snapped, trying her best to keep the tears at bay.

"I did, but what records did he leave us to check the signatures? We lost a great deal the last time Vash the Stampede came to town."

Oh. So that was what this was all about. It wasn't even that they had no backbone to stand up to the loan sharks. No, they were crapping themselves because of Vash, despite what he had done to help them.

"You know as well as I do that that bandit who destroyed the city the last time was an imposter, and not Vash. The real Vash the Stampede saved this sorry city and rescued me. You know that is the truth."

She saw the look the sheriff and the loan shark shared; they both remembered the naked dog incident.

"Lina, that is in the past, it doesn't matter." The sheriff said with dismissive authority. "What does matter is that he is here, in this city, at this time. They say he destroyed the water station an ile out of town yesterday."

"Yes he did." She said, barely keeping control of her shaking voice. "But that was after those bandits that you have been ignoring shot up my grandmother's funeral and kidnapped me. I think I'll campaign to make Vash sheriff, rather than you."

"Lina, it does not change things that you are harbouring a wanted outlaw. The law will not be able to overlook things when trouble comes to a head."

She reached over and gathered the papers back into her bag.

"I see now that you're all scratching each other's backs, while ignoring the real troubles." She slung the bag over her shoulder and stood. She pulled out an old brown envelope. "This will see that you do not have to worry about me as one of the many things you have to scrape off your shoe."

She went to the post office. It was in part run by the bank, but in part by the federal government. It was this slight independence of Kasted City that she was hoping would save her. She handed over the deed of the house to the postmaster; he was a shrewd young man who had not much liking for the way the banker threw his weight around.

She also handed over the list of official debts, what was owed to the bank and the loan office.

"It should be enough to cover both and to give me twenty thousand." She said.

He opened it and stared at the contents.

"But Lina, all your family are here."

"In the graveyard." It came out bitterly.

He turned the title deed over in his hands.

"Is this something to do with the fact that Vash the Stampede is threatening to keep your place?"

"What?" She blurted out in astonishment.

"I heard that he threatened the Judd gang this morning, said he owned the house."

"They tried to evict me this morning on Edvers's orders. The Judd's wet themselves and scarpered when he came out to tell them to shut up because he was sleeping."

"So he is in town."

She clenched her fist.

"It doesn't matter. Just give me the money."

She watched his face turn shrewd and took a steadying breath.

"We will have to send out assessors to determine the current worth of your land..."

"Oh what crap." She snapped at him. "You know that place is worth eighty thousand, and the transfer and legal fees will cost half that, so I get forty thousand, then fifteen go to the bank and I get twenty five thousand, five which go to you, so I end up with twenty thousand."

He stared at her.

"Ten thousand."

She considered this. To be rid of this town and its fools, it was worth it.

"Done."

"Write it all down." She told him, pointing to the typewriter on his desk.

He hesitated.

"What, were you going to worm your way out of it and utterly beggar me?"

"Lina." He handed back the title deed. "Think this over."

Ah. So Edvers had his claws in him too. Nice.

"I think I find the quality of men's fortitude somewhat lacking in this city." She snatched the title deed from him and turned to go. Edvers was standing at the door, Judd, his potbellied henchmen was looming over him.

* * *

Vash walked through the city with the twins trailing after him. They had concocted a ridiculously complicated argument to persuade him that a visit to the doughnut shop was in order. He smiled to himself, just one wide-eyed look from Jasmine would have done it, but he was not going to let her know that. He had not been able to find Lina when he had left and the nagging worry in his gut distracted him.

They found a plump grandmother sitting at a side stall in the main street busy pouring fresh doughnuts. The twins watched as she mixed the batter and let it stand then made new ones. They were so avidly interested that the old woman allowed them a chance at making their own. He leaned against the wall and munched them as they made them, all hot and dripping with icing.

It was then that he noticed a crowd at the post office, which reminded him.

"Ma'am, I just need to post a letter." He said to the old woman. "Do you mind if they wait here with you?"

"Don't you be too long about it." She cautioned, though her frown softened when he smiled at her.

He fished in his pockets, his hands bumping over the holsters he wore on both hips. He wore Knives's gun on his left hip, but it was useless. He would have to get Marlon to repair whatever damage the plant energy had done to it. His own, he had in its usual position.

He found the letter in his pocket and then found a double dollar note that would be enough to send it to Elizabeth. The twins had written it, and all it contained was a folded page with the words 'thank you,' on it. It had been Lina's idea when she had heard the whole story, and while they had liked it, they had not agreed on what to write, except for those words. He turned the letter over, he would never have thought of it, but according to Lina such things were important.

He slipped through the crowd, people usually made way for him, and this time they did not seem to be upset when he jumped the queue to get inside. It was the gun barrels that got his immediate attention. He raised his hands and peered over his glasses at the scene in the room. Lina was in the act of reaching for a brown envelope which the potbellied man he had seen off earlier now held. She was being restrained by a young man and threatened by a rough looking fellow who was half hiding behind the pot bellied man.

"Vash get out of here!" Lina screamed at him.

He smiled, he had been right; she would have half the young men in the town after her. She seemed to have made an effort, and looked particularly pretty right now.

"Can't. I have a letter to post." He waggled his wrist.

"Him?" The rough fellow peered around the potbellied man. "Judd, is he the one who ran you off?"

Judd glared at him, shame burning in his cheeks.

"Edvers, he'll have you for breakfast!" Lina declared, making the rough man's scowl turn to a sneer.

"He's not Vash the Stampede!" Edvers declared with a choking laugh. "Everyone knows he's a hundred year old plant. This whippersnapper can't be more than twenty four!"

"He matches the poster, boss."

Vash watched as everyone examined the poster on the post office wall and then scrutinised his face. He examined it himself.

"What an excellent likeness!" He declared and settled into the same pose. Lina rolled her eyes at him and mouthed 'get out!' with some desperation.

"He could be his identical twin." One of the crowd caught up in the scuffle remarked.

"That still makes him a plant." Another said.

"With black hair? Aren't they supposed to be crazy?"

Ah, what a good idea.

"Oh yes!" He ducked smoothly out of the necklace of gun barrels. "I am completely insane!"

He dodged the man who tried to grab him, but tripped and sprawled over Judd, bringing him and Edvers down onto the floor. They all scrabbled around for their guns.

"Sorry!" He wailed as Edvers and Judd both held barrels to his skull.

"Judd, there is no way this man is Vash the Stampede." Edvers got to his feet. "He's just duped Lina. He probably knows how she goes on about him. Tie him up, and let us finish this."

Vash sat against the post office counter and watched as they rounded on Lina again.

"So the deed is now ours."

Lina grinned at them suddenly.

"No. It's his."

Vash grinned up at the gun barrels. He tried to hide the letter in his hand.

"Had it over, you idiot." Edvers reached down and Vash wriggled away, but not fast enough. The man's hand darted out and snatched the letter.

"Make him regret he messed with us." Edvers said to Judd then marched out of the door.

There was silence in the room. It was broken by a breathy 'oof' as Lina elbowed the young man holding her. Judd eyed him.

"You're not really him, are you?"

Vash grinned.

"But I am!"

One of Judd's men kicked his shoulder.

"Ow!" That hurt.

Lina launched herself across the room at the henchmen who had kicked him and shoved him away.

"Leave him alone!" She spread her arms out in front of him.

There was ragged laughter.

"He's not your hero Lina." Judd shook his head.

"What? You say that now when you pissed yourself over his name this morning?"

Judd glowered and raised his revolver. A gunshot went off and Judd jumped back, his gun spinning away across the floor.

"No need to be so hasty." Vash shrugged off his ropes and rubbed at his sore shoulder.

Judd's eyes widened as he stood up.

"How did that reasoning go again?" Vash asked. "If I am not Vash the Stampede, then I am not a hundred year old plant with a hundred years of experience as a gunman, then me trying to shoot you now would probably mean you are facing a wet behind the ears twenty four year old and you might die. Was that about it?"

Judd stared at him.

"You cheeky little..."

Vash pushed his glasses up his nose and straightened his arm with the revolver.

"Don't mess with Lina, if you don't want to have to deal with me."

"Deal with you? Who would want to?" Judd shook his head at Lina. "You sure chose yourself a fruit cake." He spat and called the rest of his gang after him, disgusted.

Vash pulled an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to Lina.

"Are you selling your house?"

She gaped at him and took the white envelope from him, her eyes widened when she took out the title deed inside.

"But Edvers..."

"Has the letter the twins wrote. I'll get it back from him later. You do what you need to do."

She hugged him in front of all the customers in the post office. He patted her head awkwardly, noticing not a few people comparing his face with the wanted poster and rolling their eyes. They thought him an imposter, imposing on Lina. He smiled; he could be that if that was what she needed.

* * *

Lina drove the truck into the yard of the house. The twins were busy packing away the last of the things that had not sold in the yard sale. Vash was sitting on the veranda drinking beer with Carlston, who had just come out of hospital, and she was sure was not supposed to have alcohol with his medication. It had been because of Carlston that she had even made it to this day alive. He had lost most of his men, and now complained of a constant pain in his gut. His short plump features and odd eye patch made him look like a pig, and he had worse wondering hands than Edvers, but the odd pinched backside was worth his defence.

"Where did you get that thing?" He asked as she jumped down from the driver's seat. The twins left their packing and climbed up into the cab to explore it.

She watched as they went through to the back where there were six bunks and cargo storage.

"We're joining the caravan."

Carlston stared at her.

"I'm a fair dancer and I can shoot better than most of your men. The steamer caravan leaves in two days."

"Why do you need that thing?" Carlston asked eyeing the eight-wheeled truck.

"Because I am not riding a steamer if I can help it. I like my independence, thank you. You can come with us if you like. There will always be work for another gunman."

"You've got him, what do you need me for?" Carlston asked, jerking his thumb at Vash.

"He's only riding with us for the entertainment of his suave charm and good looks."

Carlston laughed as Vash preened.

"No Lina. This is my city, my territory, and I have to make sure it stays that way. Mister Suave Charm and Good Looks made sure of that, and now that I am the top dog, I need to make sure that the fellows underneath me understand that. Judd and Edvers need to have their positions explained to them very carefully."

"It would flatter me if it were done with a bullet to the arse so that every time they sit down they remember me." Lina purred.

"What a delightful idea, Lina."


	15. Chapter 15

_**Chapter 15**_

December City cont…

It had been eight months since there had been any report of Vash's whereabouts. Meryl stood at the window drinking coffee and watching the bakers load a truck for a morning delivery run. She had pulled an all-nighter, again. She wasn't getting much sleep as it was, so she figured she might as well spend her awake time productively. Milly and the others had gone home at midnight, but she had stayed on, trying to finish the work before she had to deliver it to the Terrans. They had expected it last week, but unforeseen complications had delayed them a week.

They had had an unusual amount of success with their information service. Not only did the Terrans want to know the whereabouts of the rogue plants, but also so did several news agencies and the NLBC. This she did by feeding back reports she received from the networks she had established with her friends and acquaintances in the towns and cities she had visited. This paid the bills and made their customers expectant of news before events happened. She explained that that was frankly not possible and that she was merely reporting incidents, what they did with the information was their business.

But the other side of the business had come about as a result of the advert they had placed in the city newspapers. This she found was vastly more difficult and much more rewarding.

She had entered the office that morning, six months ago, a week after the advert had run. She recalled it with heart stopping clarity.

Her desk was full of papers, reports, eye witness accounts of incidents, and a mail listing of all her informers. She sat down and pulled the eyewitness accounts towards her to skim through and make notes. They had been tracking the plant who went by the alias 'Knives', but Meryl was sure that it was not Vash's brother. She had heard stories from Livio, a reformed assassin who had once been hired by Knives, and the terror and cruelty he ascribed to Knives did not match up to this one. This one sounded like a bank robber using a name to frighten people. It was not an unusual occurrence, as she had another folder of eyewitness accounts saying Vash the Stampede had done the same thing.

It was as she was reading the accounts that she felt a touch of a gun barrel to the back of her neck and a hand reached out and snatched the pages from in front of her.

"How does it feel to be at the mercy of a stranger you do not even know?" A man's voice asked, bleakly.

She raised her hands, her heart pounding. He poked the back of her neck with the barrel.

"I asked you a question Meryl Stryfe."

She tried to see who it was, but he stood behind her chair and pressed the muzzle harder against her neck when she shifted.

"You will only be a stranger if you do not allow me to know you." She replied realising that 'terrified' was not a good answer.

The stranger went oddly still.

"Why would you want to know me?" He asked, his accent which had been a fair mimic of that of No Man's Land, now became distinctly Terran.

"So that perhaps we might be friends."

"Friends, Meryl Stryfe? What meaning does that word have to you? From what I have seen, you only have Milly Thompson as a friend."

"I have many friends." She said angrily.

"And then Milly would be your junior subordinate, so perhaps friendship isn't the right word. A colleague."

"She is a friend first."

"No, she is a colleague first, then when you need to relax, she is a friend at your convenience. Much like you do to everyone else you encounter. The work comes first."

Who the hell was he to tell her that?

"What is your point _sir_ , so that we may end this soon?" She asked coldly.

"I was just wondering how you and Vash the Stampede related to each other. As you've surely destroyed his life as badly as you have mine."

She felt herself go cold. The man behind her was a plant; she felt it in her gut.

"Sir, you need to understand something." She said coolly. "I only ever went after Vash because, because..." She could not finish her sentence.

"Why?" He asked.

She clenched her hands as she held them in the air. It hurt to even think of this.

"Because I wanted to protect him. Look, don't you think I realise what a fool I was, taking on the NLBC job, I am fully aware of the damage I did. I went out wanting to help him and all I did was destroy the protection around him. Why do you think I set up this agency? I wanted to help him. If I can find information on him, I can delay it just long enough to allow him time to escape. Yet at the same time to keep the news reporters and the bounty hunters interested enough in the trail so that they don't know I am duping them. Is that what you wanted to know? You can shoot me now."

The stranger lowered the barrel and placed a large hand on top of her head, then turned her to face him. She had not been wrong. He was a plant, he had pale blue eyes and his hair was black with a single blond streak over his left temple.

"This is about me." He put the reports back on her table. "But you don't offer me the same misinformation service. What's so special about him?"

She opened her mouth to answer and snapped it shut. She could not say it.

He released her head and sat down on the edge of her table. He held the revolver lightly in his left hand.

"You are an interesting contradiction, Meryl Stryfe. You try to help, but fail spectacularly. You work so hard but nothing is done. The man you love is not going to see you if you hide behind your paperwork and help others to hunt down his kin."

She gaped at him.

"I do not love him!"

The man leaned over and stared her in the eyes.

"I can smell that you do. I can see your mind, and that you lie to yourself because you cannot hope for him to love you in return. A simple thing." He shrugged. "But I did not come here to help you pursue your erstwhile boyfriend. I came here to work out why if you do love him, you hunt the rest of us worse than that monster Johnston?"

"What?" She exclaimed, standing up to glare at the man. "I do not!"

He reached out and placed a copy of the ad on the table. Its edges ragged where it had been torn roughly out of the newspaper. It gave the details of the business and stated that they were 'searching for plants.' He patted the stack of notes.

"Then this does not say anything about me, and you were not going to hand this over to the Terrans."

She shut her mouth and looked at him, as the horror of what she was truly doing overcame her. She slumped back in her chair.

"The little one does not think things through all their iterations, it seems." He murmured to himself.

She glared at him.

"Don't get so upset." He murmured. "I think I have discovered a way for us to have an alliance of sorts. It would also up your success rate, and help us plants a great deal."

"What are you talking about?" She demanded.

"I am talking about the two-way sharing of information between us, and the filtered sharing of information to the outside world. We are going to protect the plants, which is what you want to do, right? It is in your founding statement. You are going to put me on your payroll so I do not have to keep robbing banks in such an uncivilised manner. In this way we have an alliance."

She stared at him.

"But why?" She whispered.

He smiled, and she caught a glimpse of the same sad happiness Vash carried.

"Because of all the organisations there ever were, this is the only one who has recognised that we need help." He stood up and slipped his revolver into its holster. "And I think you need me on your staff, we're a stubborn pig headed bunch and our greatest weakness is to use our powers to compensate for our lack of control, especially in stressful situations. Getting the idea across to the others that they need our help might require me to kick a few arses, but they'll get the idea eventually."

She gaped at him. He smiled broadly.

"Then there will also be the immense entertainment of meeting Vash the Stampede for myself. He's the best of us."

"Vash?" She said incredulously. "He whines and runs away from things."

"He is an honest man with a burden greater than any of us have had to carry. He has also faced down a fused entity, against his brother who knew his mind and could easily have destroyed him. That kind of power and bravery is unmatched in all our history. And we plants have a fairly awful history, no thanks to the humans."

"Excuse me for living." She grumbled.

"Sure. Your history is bloodier than ours, but then you've been around longer." He laughed. "We're just using our immense power to compensate for lost time."

She blinked at him. He had a sense of humour.

"What is your name?" She asked. "And don't tell me Knives."

He laughed.

"They named me Mora, but I have chosen the name Abe Jefferson."

"You deserted from the Terrans?"

"Deserted implies that I chose to run away." He said wryly. "They turned on me a month after we crashed here. Said I was useless when I could not get the ship working again, Johnston ordered me imprisoned. They tied me up to some torture device that did this to me." He lightly touched his hair. "But I broke it and escaped. So I fled the Terrans. Your society helped protect me as they welcomed an angry fighter. But I am not a fighter at heart and when my blood cooled and I found myself having to shoot people to stay alive I decided I'd had enough of it. I was going to end my life today after I killed you if you were not the person I hoped you would be."

She found herself reaching out a hand to him. He shook it.

"Welcome to Fifth Moon Investigations, Mister Jefferson."

"Aw, call me Abe, Meryl."

She watched as Abe escorted Milly and two of the other girls down the street in the early morning light. He had styled his hair into a Mohawk and had sprayed it red, as no dye would alter the black. He also wore brown contacts to cover his rather distinctive eyes, and so slipped seamlessly into the society. Abe was a worse charmer than Vash with a pretty girl, as he charmed everyone. He frequently made her blush with his flattery, and he let people know that he knew what they were thinking, just enough to make them laugh. He never seemed to cross the line into awkward embarrassment.

He walked into the office and took the cup of coffee out of her hand.

"Milly girl will walk the papers down to the post office. Yours truly will man your desk for the morning and you will go home to that tiny flat of yours and sleep."

"Thanks Abe."

"He's out there." Abe said softly and walked on.

She glared after him furiously. How did he always seem to know when she was thinking about Vash, even when the thoughts were not in her conscious mind? Bloody plants and their bloody powers.

"But we're so devastatingly charming that you cannot do without us."

She stuck her tongue out at him and went to gather her things. It had been eight months. Where was he hiding and what had happened?

* * *

Sand wastes East of Lost July

The caravan had travelled slowly north, stopping at the larger towns and staying up to a week at the cities. It had all been well until the fourth month in. Lina had relished her job as a bodyguard, and when that contract had ended had made good friends with the dancing girls on board the sand steamer and they had allowed her to join the chorus. But the fourth month had sealed her fate as it were. She still cringed as she remembered the expression on his face.

She'd let Jasmine drive the truck through the dark, she knew she could trust the twins at the wheel. On no account, the twins had told her, was Vash allowed to drive. They had then regaled her with his many failures while he had spluttered and protested, but eventually promised not to even try while whining that he was not that bad. She had left Vash sleeping in the passenger seat and Doug was riding spotter for Jasmine so she would not fall asleep. They did not mean to, but when the three of them were together, she usually missed half the conversation, and most of the hinted nuances, which they exchanged among each other too fast for her to follow. She smiled at that, it made them odd, but that time they spent together she knew they treasured. She had seen the peaceful happy expression on his face more frequently now. There had been several minor incidents, which he always seemed to snarl himself in the middle of, and then work out to his satisfaction. She knew that some of the convoy crew suspected who he was, but as he had been the one to save them twice now, they bought him drinks with the understanding that no one would say anything.

She had pulled on her dancing dress for the night and the zipper had stuck. It was something as simple and as frustrating as that. She had wriggled around and tried to tug it up. She had even tried sucking in her breath, but it would not go.

She went up to the cab.

"Doug, drive for a while, I need Jasmine's help."

The twins seemed to be able to switch driving seamlessly, without becoming knotted and tangled with each other, which was what happened if she tried it with them.

"What's wrong?" Jasmine asked as she followed her into the back living quarters.

"Just the zipper."

The girl tried it a few times.

"It's not broken." Jasmine examined it, and then gave her a slightly pitying knowing smile. "I think you've put on a few extra pounds."

"I must get this dress on!" She hissed at Jasmine. "I'm dancing tonight."

"I could put it together with pins." Jasmine suggested. "But they will come undone on you if you pull them too much."

There was an abrupt screech of breaks and Doug cussed at the driver in front of him. She and Jasmine had tumbled right through to the cab.

"What happened?" Vash asked, now awake and hastily winding down the window. Before anyone could stop him, he leaped out and landed on the truck in front of them.

"Doug! No!" Lina yelled, as the boy bounded out and followed him.

She tried to grab Jasmine as she followed but the girl was too quick.

She watched them go, they were almost too fast for the eye to see. Vash at least had the sense to make a fool of himself, but the twins had no sense of self preservation when it came to revealing that they were not quite human. She stamped her foot in frustration and the boot knife flicked out. That was the final straw. She slumped down in the driver's seat and hiccupped with half sobs of frustration, anger and fear. This had been all her idea, but now it did not seem so good.

The convoy leaders were indicating that they were to form a defensive circle, so she put the truck into gear and followed across to where they had led. Her truck, by consensus, was in the inner circle. The twins had gained the protective eye of many of the gruffer gunmen guarding the convoy. Lina hauled a coat on over her dress and grabbed her guns then took up her position on top of the cab. She had mounted a spotlight there at Doug's suggestion, and it helped for night raids. It was her job to defend it.

She sat watching the raiders go after the sand steamer, which was not the wisest tactic, but it brought in the biggest haul if they could capture it. There was a sudden explosion and in the light, she saw the flash of a red coat. Vash had encountered their magazine car if nothing else. She could not make out what was happening in the dark beyond the reach of her flood light. The convoy soon had their own problems, as they had decided to sit out a siege; they had to be prepared to defend their position.

She raised her rifle and called the concentration until it was only her and her target. She aimed for the vehicle wheels, if the raiders were on foot, others could take them out, but shooting tires was her speciality. She took out the tyres of three cars before managing to flip a car. She winced. He'd be all over her for that, Vash and his protectiveness, but nothing she could do about it. She targeted the others. She had forgotten she was also supposed to be defending the spot light when several bullets whipped past her. She swore and swung the light onto the drivers who were now within range. The convoy opened fire, but they still targeted the light. She tried to shoot back, but the range was beyond her rifle, her precious bullets biting the sand.

She then saw more cars coming. This was more than the usual night raid, this was a full on battle. The gangs they met in the desert wastes were often opportunists, but this was well planned and well funded by the tanks that she now saw. She hastily swung down into the cab and grabbed a case of ammunition and several handguns for backup if it came to close fighting. She would give them the entertainment they craved.

There was a thunderous crack, as next bullet took out the light. She screamed all the worst insults she could think at them then pulled on her night goggles and stood on the roof, sniping. It was as the flood lights came on around the steamer that she realised that the battle had just begun.

* * *

Vash slipped down the turret into the tank, landing sprawled on top of the gun operator, stunning him, the rest of the tank crew squirmed in their tight quarters to draw handguns.

"Sorry!" He put his hands up as a canister bounced into the room. Everyone gawked at it in horror and Vash took a flying leap upwards and wriggled out of the turret as it went off.

"Douglas!" He yelled. "Get over here!"

The boy landed lithely beside him. He now looked like a skinny thirteen year old, his short blond hair spiked up all over his head. He reminded Vash of someone, but he could not for the life of him think who it was. Of course, it was a similar look to what Knives wore, so that could be it.

"You've just gas bombed the crew. How is this thing going to drive?"

"I'll just disable the tracks, it won't go anywhere then."

He leaned over and shot out the tank tracks. It went round in circles while he leaped to the other side and shot those out. There was a crunch and a groan of tortured metal as the inner cogs jammed, and the tank shuddered to a halt.

They stared at each other.

"I thought I told you to stay with Lina."

"You promised that Jasmine and I could help you in the next fight. We're doing ok. But that sand steamer isn't. I bet that's where Jasmine is now."

"W-what?" Vash felt his heart skip a few beats in sheer horror.

They forgot their conversation as the sand steamer turned and began bearing down on the now disabled tank.

"Get the people out!" Vash dove down into the room and hauled people up for Doug to drag clear.

They just got the last man free when the steamer squashed the tank and dragged it along for several yarz before coming to a grinding halt.

"Let's go find Jasmine." Doug darted past Vash as he tried to grab him.

The kids could handle themselves; he tried to tell his frantic mind. He had blinked a moment and had lost Doug. He had to find the cause of this raid, and fast, before the kids got themselves in too deep.

He went up to the bridge, but found no one there. Unusual, but perhaps not so, if they had brought along tanks, they were after the safe the steamer carried. He hurried down and was quite surprised to find his second guess incorrect. Oh man, that meant some personal feud. This was just getting worse.

He ran down to the entertainment deck, distracted for a moment by a crowd of what seemed to be opportunistic passengers trashing the casino machines. What was the point? He made it to the ballrooms and stumbled right out into the middle of a stand off. There were a crowd of elegantly attired passengers, the ladies clutching at their jewellery and the gentlemen trying to protect them. He saw Jasmine hiding in the crowd put her hand over her eyes and cringe. He resisted the temptation to call out to her. The other side were a heavily armed group of hijackers. Their leader stepped out.

"Who the hell are you?"

The young man had black hair and green eyes. Vash stared back at him, as the man's eyes slowly widening in horror. He was a plant and had recognised him for what he was.

"Are you with them?" The man demanded, raising his pistol.

"I'm a guard on this ship." Vash said stepping out to stand in front of the passengers. "We could talk this out..."

"Talk? What? I don't have time for you!" The man turned to his people. "He's not on this deck, go and find him!"

Vash leaped across to the main doors and the hijackers hesitated. Something very unusual was going on; this was not the response of opportunistic highway robbers.

"Who are you looking for?" He demanded.

"I don't know who you think you are." The man demanded. "But if he finds you you're in the same fate as me. Ever heard of Ezrah?"

Vash lowered his revolver and the men hurried past him.

"Ezrah is on this ship?" He breathed in dismay, feeling his chest clench with anxiety. Everyone was in trouble now.

"Good to have you with me." The man smiled. "Luctus. Who're you?"

"It doesn't matter." Vash said shortly. "We've got to evacuate this sand steamer! The last time I met him Ezrah destroyed an entire building."

Luctus stared at him incredulously. He noticed Jasmine roll her eyes, then smash the glass of the fire alarm with the stock of her pistol and press it. There were shrieks as the water sprinklers came on and Vash pulled the man out of the way of the crowd streaming out of the doors.

"What are you letting them go for?" Luctus demanded. "Ezrah hides among humans."

"He's not here, and it will be easier to find him when there aren't crowds of people to search through."

"You're an absolute idiot!" Luctus spat in disgust. "I'll take my own luck with Ezrah. Go and guard your precious people!" He strode out of the room, then called over his shoulder. "And remember humans don't owe you anything!"

Vash stood for a moment under the sprinkler system, his hair plastered to his head and drops falling down his nose. No, the humans did not owe him anything; he owed them more than he could ever repay.

Gunshots brought him back to his senses and he sprinted down the passage through the entertainment deck. The rooms were empty, save for a few determined thieves trying to open the small safe behind the casino cashiers desk. They would be okay for the moment; he had to find Ezrah before it was too late. He found a press of people around the stairs and elevators and ran back the way he had come. He turned a corner and collided with another man.

"Ow! Sorry!" He sat up rubbing his head. Swearing and repeating the same action was a man in a long grey coat and a broad brimmed hat with a single bullet hole in the rim. Johnston. There was an odd still silence as they gaped at each other.

"Vash the Stampede!" Johnston growled, pulling out an automatic pistol. Vash kicked it and the bullets ploughed into the ceiling. Johnston was abruptly overpowered from behind as Luctus appeared and kicked the gun out of his hand. The plant drew his knife.

"No!" Vash called and flung himself at Luctus.

Luctus kicked out, winding him as he slammed him against the wall. Johnston dazedly picked himself off the floor and Luctus dove for him, but Johnston darted away. Luctus sprinted after him and his men thundered past. Vash rubbed at his head trying to stop the double vision dancing around his head. The next thing he knew Luctus was standing in front of him, holding him up by the neck of his coat and slamming him against the wall. Luctus dropped him and kicked him, so that he sprawled over to the side. He tried to pick himself up again, his prosthetic responding better than his right arm.

"How could you defend him?"

"Wha?" His head hurt like a thousand explosions had gone off. He must have passed out.

Luctus gave him another kick.

"Have you any idea what that man has done? Murder is the least of it."

"You were going to kill him." He protested.

Luctus grabbed him around the neck by his coat again, hauled him up and pressed him against the wall with his arm.

"You don't get it. You're acting like a pathetic human. Don't believe the crap they have told you about being part of their society. They are going to kill you, like they have killed Alea and Fors!" He gasped for breath. "If you interfere with me again I will kill you."

"It's not worth it." Vash panted, struggling to breathe as the man's forearm crushed his windpipe.

Luctus searched his face, and then released him, exhaustedly.

"Who the hell are you?"

Vash tried to breath in a lungful of air.

Luctus blinked and his eyes widened.

"No. No, you're not him. You can't be. He wouldn't be such a pathetic whiner."

Vash leaned over and coughed, his throat hurt.

"What is your name?" Luctus asked, cautiously, as if afraid of the answer.

Vash straightened and gazed sadly at him. The man knew it. He saw the shame, horror, and dismay on Luctus's face and placed a hand on his shoulder before it could become defensive bluster.

"We've got to find Ezrah." Vash reminded him.

Luctus put an arm under his shoulders and helped him walk until he could hold his own.


	16. Chapter 16

_**Chapter 16**_

They made it down to the crew decks of the steamer. The passages were narrower and the place was abandoned. They came to an intersection with passages to 'power,' 'cargo' and 'crew quarters'.

"Which way?" Luctus asked.

Vash opened his mouth to say he did not know when thunderous gunshots echoed painfully in the narrow passages and bullets whined down the passage.

"I'll take power!" Vash volunteered as Luctus tore down the cargo passage.

He found he was running alone, the men had followed Luctus. There was gunfire up ahead and he sprinted into the boiler room. This ship did not have a power plant on board; it was too small for that. The crew from the ship were still doggedly manning their posts around the boiler. Oddly, they were being defended by several of Luctus's men against a group of Terrans who were threatening them from the gantry. Vash slipped as he entered the room, some far too clever person had coated the smooth gantry with oil. His momentum slid him across the room, his hands could gain no purchase as his body slammed into the Terran's and they fell like skittles, tangling each other up as they tried to danced out of his way, and he finished up sprawled before the hijackers.

"He's ours." A very familiar voice said, and someone landed a boot on his arm, though just enough to keep him down, not to hurt him. He knew that voice. Vash wondered if his ears were deceiving him. He stared up at the two cross shaped submachine guns, then his eyes travelled up to the face. A cloak wrapped around his shoulders hid most of it, but under the broad brimmed black hat, Livio's eyes gazed down at him.

"Fantastic entry, Vash the Stampede." He grinned. "Get them out of here, and keep them alive, I want plenty of prisoners for witnesses." Livio ordered his men and they scrambled to the Terrans who were trying to stand on the oil slicked floor.

He picked himself up with Livio's help. What oil had they used? They defeated even his boots which were purpose made for grip in poor situations.

"So the Humanoid Typhoon becomes a bowling ball at need."

"Ow." Vash winced, and smiled. "Was the oil your idea?"

"No, the Terran's decided to let off some rounds in here before we explained to them that hitting a pressurised steam boiler was possibly the last thing they would ever do. But they hit the lubricant before we could get them under control."

"What are you doing here Livio? I thought you were running that orphanage beyond December."

"I'd ask the same of you, I thought you were out east dancing in front of the camera like an idiot."

Gun shots went off along the passage.

"Don't run, or you'll fall on your face." Livio grabbed the back of his coat and hauled him upright once more.

"Crowley, we need some more of that scour for his boots!" He called to the chief engineer. The man tossed a gallon bucket across and Livio caught it by the handle with a grunt.

"This'll help."

* * *

Lina stripped the old lamp from the search light and jammed a new bulb in place. She closed her eyes and pulled back her hands, hissing in pain, as it came on and burned her. She latched the cracked front lens closed and focussed it out onto their attackers. There was a sudden explosion out to the aft of the port side of the sand steamer where the cargo units were. She swung the beam over the truck that launched itself into the air bounced several times on the sand and swerved until the driver regained control. Shots were fired out from the sand steamer and shots returned from the car.

She was so intent on the fight that she did not even feel the bullet hit her. All she felt was the odd impact backwards. She stumbled, unable to put her weight on her right leg. She shrieked as she slipped off the top of the cab and wildly tried to grab the window. She jarred her arm uncomfortably as she caught it then her hand slipped and she collapsed on the ground.

"Lina!"

A rough hand helped her into a sitting position. She looked into the face of one of the caravan guards.

"I think my leg is hit." She murmured, still astonished that it did not yet hurt. She did not look at it; she knew that much, if she did then it would really begin to hurt.

She watched as people gathered around her, one bandaging her leg, two of them lifting her. It all happened in such an orderly manner, and she chatted about inane things. The shoes they wore, the way their coats fitted, and realised dimly that she was in shock. Jasmine returned as the doctor ordered that she be taken on board the steamer for surgery, as the bullet was still lodged in her thigh.

"No." She muttered, anxiously.

"It's okay." Jasmine squeezed her hand. "We'll look after the truck."

"The weapons on the roof."

"We'll get them." The girl assured her.

* * *

Whatever the scour was, Vash found it made his boots very tacky and the grip was excellent. He sprinted after Livio and his men as they had had a few seconds head start while he was cleaning his boots. He arrived in the cargo bay in time to see Luctus firing a bazooka after a retreating car. He lowered the weapon and swore. The rocket missed its target, falling too short.

"Who was that?" Livio asked, marching up to Luctus.

"Johnston." Luctus said, his fist clenching on the rocket tube. "I nearly had him. I nearly killed him, except this red coated idiot intervened!"

"Yeah, he does that." Livio said evenly.

Luctus gaped at him.

"You know him?"

"Yep. He saved my life a few times, saved this planet a few times too. I think we get to listen to what he wants if he asks, even if it is things like not killing people."

"He's a complete idiot."

Livio shrugged and tilted his head backwards.

"He's also standing a few yarz behind us."

Luctus glanced back and Vash raised a hand.

Luctus put his hand over his eyes and then dragged his fingers down his face in an exhausted manner.

"We've still not found Ezrah. It was only Johnston and five of his goons on that truck." Luctus glared at Vash as he passed. "You search the starboard side and I'll search the port, and whoever finds him first gets to choose his fate."

"I wouldn't bet like that. He's very lucky." Livio warned.

"I'm not!" Vash exclaimed. If anything, it was the exact opposite.

"I thought you were on my side." Luctus snapped at Livio.

"I am, but I'll fight as his partner. He creates a vortex of disaster and luck around him; if I were you I'd stick to him closer than a flea on a dog."

Luctus gazed at Vash for a moment, his eyes going strangely soft and hopeful then they hardened.

"The best enemy is a dead enemy. I'll not have your featherweight arguments destroy my convictions." He paused. "As they say back on the old planet, 'may the best man win'."

The steamer was only partly empty. They kept encountering pockets of people still held up by Luctus's men. Livio searched through the crowd until he found someone he recognised.

"Mac! Let these people go. Get your men down to the trucks; Johnston has given us the slip!"

"Johnston was here?" Mac's gruff face broke with chagrin. "That son of a bitch lied to us!"

"No. Luctus didn't know either. He nearly got Johnston too, don't worry about his loyalties. You get those you can find and hunt him down."

"Right." Mac growled with grim satisfaction, and he redeployed a few men to run with Livio before descending down to go back to the trucks.

Vash kept going, leaving Livio to his arrangements. There were three factions as he saw it, men loyal to Luctus, those to Livio and those with a third agenda of chasing Johnston over Ezrah. What had caused Livio to ally himself with Luctus, a Terran plant? It did not make sense. He had thought the man happily settled at the orphanage. In fact, the last time he had seen him there he had spoken about plans of never again picking up his guns. Vash wished that dream could have lasted. No, perhaps not. No Man's Land was not a place for someone as skilled as he was to lay down his talents. They were hard earned and bitterly won, but like his own fighting skills, had a place in the dry harsh world. He hoped that Livio's presence meant that he had found a cause worthy of his skills, and not bent on vengeful murder as Luctus was.

He hunted through the rooms. He reached the main dining halls and threw the large double doors open as he heard voices through them. The silence that followed the crash of the doors was absolute. There were people here all right, but they wore the Terran uniform and carried blasters.

"Are you one of those blasted hijackers?" A self important man stepped out, speaking a rather high accented Terran. His gesture to the side of the room made him aware he had interrupted a standoff between the Terrans and several of Luctus's men who held the ships passengers captive. This was not something he had time to diffuse now! He marched into the room furious.

"No! I'm a guard on this ship! Why have you not evacuated? Get moving!" He furiously pointed down the passage where the evacuation lights were still flashing.

"It's him!" One of the ship passengers pointed at him. "Vash the Stampede."

What? Did they not know the danger they were in?

"The plant?" The Terrans raised their blasters.

"Get out of here!" Vash yelled at them, then darted out of the room as the blaster detonations cracked the passage wall opposite the door.

He was always amazed at how mutual enemies could unite against him. He hightailed it out of the dining halls and behind him the Terrans, the passengers and Luctus's men all jammed in the passage in their pursuit of him. There was a sudden very short nasty battle in the confines of the passage. Doug ran past him and he grabbed the boy and hauled him into a room, kicking the door shut as the pursuers who had broken free of the fight poured around the corner.

"Ow!" The boy complained as he clutched his stomach and coughed weakly. "You winded me!"

"Better than being dead."

Doug's eyes widened as the people thundered down the passage beyond.

"What are we going to do?" He asked. "Sneak through the air vents?"

"No, they are too small on this class of steamer." He said and pointed to the window. "We'll take the outside route."

Doug stuck his head out of the porthole. It was at least a hundred yarz drop to the ground.

"Anyone ever tell you you're stark raving mad?"

Vash laughed rather sheepishly as he scratched the back of his neck.

"Not in so many words."

Doug scowled at him.

The wind had begun to pick up and the grip they had on the metal cladding of the ship was tenuous at best. It was a good test of the prosthetic, which was holding up well under the strain he put on it. Several times he had to reach across and grab Doug's shirt when the boy found his reach was just not long enough. They made it to the gantry midway down and Doug collapsed onto it panting. Vash crouched down beside him as the wind blew his hair, it hung in his eyes now, the water and then the oil had made a complete mess of it. The attack on the convoy appeared to have ended and there were pools of light around it as teams worked to rescue the wounded or to guard their captives.

"Go and see if your sister is back at the truck." He told Doug. "Search the convoy if she is not. If you cannot find her, go to the cargo bay of the ship and tell the men there to get the message to me. But I don't want you back on this sand steamer, things are going to get very ugly."

Doug punched him on the shoulder, but was still too shaky to attack him.

"You're just being a grown up and sending me away when all the exciting stuff happens."

Vash stood up.

"She needs your protection now. Would you leave her alone?"

"Of course not."

He gazed down at the boy watching him make a man's decision. Doug scowled at him and muttered something about grownups again but shinnied down the ladder rather swiftly.

He climbed upwards and let himself in at the emergency hatch. He had to find Ezrah before Luctus did, but where to begin? If Ezrah had been with Johnston, and Johnston was with the Terran party on board the ship, then if he found their quarters perhaps he might gain a clue as to where Ezrah was. It was a weak lead, but it was a start.

He ran for the first class passenger cabins on the port side of the ship. According to the manifest lists the Terrans had booked an entire passage to themselves. He just could not get there fast enough. An explosion made the walls tremor, but it was more the concussion that flung him back. Why did he always have such awful luck chasing Ezrah? He knew he had come to the right place when he had encountered the people who had followed Livio and Luctus. They pelted down the passage, some helping their injured fellows.

"Get out of here! They're fighting with wild plant energy!"

He flattened himself to the side of the passage as they ran past, and then put on an extra burst of speed. He did not need to ask which room, half the rooms were open to the passage and the crumpled melted twisted metal was witness to what had once been the walls. He bounded over the rapidly cooling metal, still glowing in places, and found both Livio and Luctus there. They were in what once had been a private lounge, but the blackened interior and the strange upright coffin in which they had imprisoned Ezrah were clearly none of the original decor.

Luctus lay sprawled out on the floor, his eyes rolled back in his head, and Ezrah was kneeling on the floor in front of the coffin, kept upright by the shackles that bound his hands behind his back. Livio picked himself up off the floor in a dazed fashion. He twitchily raised his weapons the moment he noticed him, then lowered them again. The tight alertness in his eyes lessening as Vash approached. What had happened?

He crouched down beside Luctus, but the man was only stunned, so he shifted the man onto his side into a recovery position. He crossed over to Ezrah and pushed the man into a more comfortable sitting posture. The unconscious man's head lolled against his shoulder. He then realised something. Ezrah's hair was almost completely black now. He grabbed the man's shoulders and stared at him. He knew what he had done for his hair to go completely black, what in the world had Ezrah been up to?

"What's happened to him?"

"It's the machine." Livio said, crouching down beside him and grabbing Ezrah by the hair to lift his blank face up. "I got here just in time to dive behind it when Luctus set it off. It sent a blast of light out, and made his hair turn black."

Livio twitched his hand away as Ezrah blinked dazedly. He jerked out of Vash's grip and slumped back into the coffin, his eyes watching them defiantly. He coughed and blood ran in a trickle out of the corner of his mouth. His eyes drooped closed and he hunched his shoulders and forced his head up and his eyes opened to slits. He took a few sharp breaths then opened his eyes fully, a terrifying intensity in them.

"Vash the Stampede." He breathed hoarsely, as if afraid. "Why are you here?"

"He's a friend of mine." Livio said in a slow perversely pleased growl. "Brought him along for the accounting of matters."

Ezrah peered up at Livio.

"Who the hell are you?"

Livio smiled slowly.

"You'll work it out eventually."

"You're not a plant; this has nothing to do with you!"

"You are correct in the former statement and devastatingly wrong in the latter." Livio purred.

"I'm warning you human, stay out of this. We're not after you!"

Livio leaned on the chains and Ezrah gave a ragged gasp of agony and arched his back to prevent his arms twisting out of the shoulder sockets.

"You'd already be dead if you had been after me." Livio said conversationally. "However, it seems that there are people that you are after. Luctus and Vash seem to know you from unpleasant personal encounters. Why are you hunting plants when you're a plant yourself?"

Ezrah crouched panting, and did not answer fast enough. Livio released the chains and kicked him.

"You want another?" He growled as Ezrah picked himself up.

(You're insane human!) Ezrah's voice blared painfully around Vash's mind. Livio simply flinched slightly and his grin became wider.

"You're nothing on my old master." Livio spoke in a soft menacing whisper. "You've got a lot to learn before your powers cow me. Now answer my question or I start shooting off body parts you clearly don't need."

The plant flinched as Livio raised his gun and thrust it in his face. Ezrah's eyes were so ensnared by it that he didn't notice the silent battle between Vash and Livio. Vash tried to grab his arm and Livio pressed him backwards with his boot, trying to nudge him away. It lasted no more than a second as Ezrah slumped forward.

"I don't see what this has to do with humans or a No Man's Lander at that." He growled at Livio, but his eyes were still fixed on the submachine gun barrel resting on his nose. "I've got a hit list for certain plants. I'm just an assassin."

"Why?" Vash asked in shock. "You came all the way from Earth to kill these people? Why?"

Ezrah raised his head.

"Because they paid me. I know the system works the same here." He said with a sardonic smile.

"Why did they get onto that list at all?" Livio asked.

Ezrah smiled slightly and nodded towards Vash.

"He's on the list for the same reason, once we discovered what had happened here. On earth all those plants killed orb plants that bore children."

Livio lifted the gun away and barked an incredulous laugh.

"You're crusaders?" He breathed in disbelief, and leaned over to look Ezrah in the eye.

"What do you mean by that?"

"That you're bloody insane!" Livio exclaimed. "Work for the money, work for the power, work for the thrill, I understand that. But work for an ideal like that?" He turned to Vash. "You haven't got to him have you? You're beginning to sound mighty similar with your reasoning."

"No. Killing is not the answer." Vash considered the terrified memory that Chronica had once shared with him. He addressed Ezrah. "What if many of the plants had no choice in doing what they did?"

"Are you condoning them?" Ezrah snarled.

"No. But the whole situation is not known." He pleaded, urgently trying to make him see what a mistake this all was. "There are extenuating circumstances. I did not know what I was about to see when I first witnessed a last run, and the horror remains with me to this day." He felt empty inside, drained by the anguish.

"You're a bit different. You are on the list for causing this entire accident of landing on this planet in the first place. You killed thousands of humans and hundreds of plants. Believe me killing your brother was the highlight of my existence."

Livio barked a laugh.

"Knives? There is no way in hell you got Knives!"

"Shot him through the head in front of his own brother's eyes." Ezrah gave Livio a grim smile.

Vash sat unaware of the tears on his face as he realised what he was facing.

"Vash?" Livio breathed in horror then turned back to Ezrah. "You know, I hated Knives, still do. But he loved him and that is enough for me. You've made the very terminal mistake of upsetting my friend."

"Livio no!" Vash shoved the gun out of the way and the bullets slammed into the chain that held Ezrah. The plant dove to the side and on discovering he was free, scrambled to his feet, his hands still bound behind him.

"He killed your brother!" Livio roared at him.

"We've had this conversation before." Vash snapped. "Killing is not the answer."

"Fine. Leave your brothers blood crying for vengeance, but I have some personal retribution to deal out, and ...he's getting away!"

Livio fired two shots after Ezrah. The plant lashed out with black darts and Vash blocked them with his revolver. The incredulity on Ezrah's face was picturesque.

"You're such a pathetic lump I keep forgetting you can fight." Ezrah grumbled. He twisted his arms and they came free of the chain, the cracking of his skin around his wrists showing where he had used his powers. He scratched at his right shoulder and flexed his shaking right hand. "What the hell did that machine do to me? It's turned the gate all slippery."

"Hah!" Livio crowed. "Well isn't that poetic justice? I think it is called the last run. Your hair is all black. Any more creative use of your power is probably going to be your last. Unless you go crazy, I heard that is what happens first."

Ezrah raised his hand to his hair in absolute horror.

"What exquisite suffering."

Luctus stepped past Livio and Vash and approached Ezrah who was trying to squint up at his own hair and pat himself for some sort of external weapon at the same time.

"Now you know how it feels to have all you ever treasured stripped away from you in an instant? You never knew what Johnston did to us, did you? You just hunted us, thinking we were crazy. And we were. Driven crazy by that machine. Crazy with fear. Crazy with pain and loss. If you want a target worthy of your talents, I suggest Johnston."

Ezrah stopped retreating and snatched up a revolver from the ground. He raised it to Luctus's head. Luctus did not even bother to put his hands up, he kept on advancing.

"That was not the reason I hunted you!" Ezrah declared. "You killed three plants on earth, as well as the power plant that gave birth to you."

"Is that all?" Luctus asked, putting his hand on his chest, halting in surprise. "While you have murdered twelve of our brethren for money. Which of us has the cleaner soul?"

Ezrah cocked the revolver and aimed it at Luctus's heart.

"No!" Vash darted forward, shoving Luctus to the side. Ezrah's bullet grazed Luctus's shoulder and he flinched, elbowing Vash away. Vash raised his hands as Luctus cocked the revolver again.

"Don't kill him. Don't you understand? You will only create more pain and loss!"

Ezrah raised an eyebrow.

"How will this be any different to what he did, or what you have done?"

"It will be ending the cycle of pain!" Vash pleaded. "You can stop now. You have an open ticket to your future. You can go anywhere. Be anything. I'm begging you, stop the pain."

"So I have a choice," Ezrah held up two fingers, lowering them as he counted off his points. "I let the condemned walk free, and save my soul from further grief, and spend the rest of my life worrying what they are up to now. Or I eliminate the condemned and rest better at night knowing they are no more." He raised his revolver and in a fluid movement shot Luctus, then fired another shot at Vash, but the bullet went wide as Livio opened fire. Ezrah's gun dropped from his bloody hand, he scrambled to grab it. Livio shot the revolver making it dance out of the way.

"I can shoot your whole arm off if you want." Livio said pleasantly. "Vash's philosophy of no killing allows some very useful back doors for maiming and disabling."

Vash rounded on him, horrified.

"No! What about love and peace? You cannot love others or show what peace is like that!"

Livio gritted his teeth, his temper simmering.

"What do you suggest I do? Ignore him while he shoots you? Turn the other cheek?"

"If that is appropriate, then yes!"

Livio raised his gun to the ceiling.

"Well, go give him back his gun and I'll watch, shall I?"

"It's not like that!" Vash snapped.

Livio felt his fingers twitch on the gun triggers. As much as he respected the man, he really, really wanted to put a few bullets through his thick scull. He relaxed his hands and tried to think around the hot blood pounding in his veins. He could not recall being so intensely irritated at anyone before. Vash was a damned walking contradiction with no regard for himself and a blatant ingratitude for those who helped him. Love and peace indeed! He had thought the no killing idea was the hardest part, yet somehow just when he had made the idea his own, Vash turned it on its head and added more.

There was a sudden howl of terror and he instinctively flowed back into a fighting stance. But he did not dare fire. The plants were up to, to _something_. They moved too fast for him to see exactly what they were doing, but it reminded him of a dirty street knife brawl, the kind where if he got out alive it was a bloody miracle. He shuddered, seeing the strange appendages that flashed out from their bodies, morphing and twisting to their purpose. Knives had fought like this, but these two were nothing but lightweights to his twisted grace and gravitas. Vash just stood there, his arms slightly raised, his hands clawed as if pleading. What was the man thinking? Wasn't he going to call them out? Nice one Vash, yell at the humans, what about the damned plants? He watched as tears leaked down his face. He wore his emotions on his sleeve. Livio appreciated that about him, there was a certain freedom in expressing it so directly, even if he was a plant. Oh. He'd forgotten that manner of expression. Perhaps Vash was yelling at them, they could speak mind to mind. He wondered why Vash had excluded him; he would not have minded hearing the lecture. He could have added his bit, Ezrah more than deserved it and Luctus could certainly learn a few things about warning a partner before setting of such a dangerous device.

It was then that everything seemed to slow down. Luctus had sent out spines that morphed into strange black wings, he had speared Ezrah through the chest. Ezrah lashed out with his own power, sending cords of barbed spears back at Luctus. Where they touched each other light orbs popped in and out of existence, growing more and more unstable and pulsing power and wild energy discharges across the room. They were going to let out their power here? This was it, they had to leave now!

"Get the hell out of here!" Livio grabbed Vash's arm. But the man turned and moved so quickly, that it hurt to be pulled through the air at that speed. Vash picked him up and leaped across the room. A white orb of light flooded over them.

There was an odd ringing in Livio's ears as he sat up. He felt the strange hot fire of his body repair system flood through him. He pushed Vash onto his back from where he lay sprawled across him. The man had protected him from the blast. His duster was scorched black in places and his hair was singed. He tried not to breath at the stench. There was an odd maze patterning on his skin which was slowly returning to normal. Then as if nothing had happened, Vash opened his eyes and sat up, then gaped around himself in horror. Several decks had been taken out. A body lay sprawled below, having fallen six decks from where they were.


	17. Chapter 17

_**Chapter 17**_

Livio followed Vash as he leaped down from deck to deck. Ezrah was nowhere in sight. Livio searched as he jumped down. Vash landed first, and after feeling for a pulse, knelt beside the man anxiously. Luctus lay on his back, his leg looked broken, but what most worried Livio was the way his body seemed to eat away at itself with the odd white fire instead of repairing. The plant made a weak gesture and Vash withdrew his hands, reluctantly.

He was still alive? Livio hurried over amazed and relieved, though twitchily watching for Ezrah. To underestimate that man was death.

"Is that you Livio?" Luctus stared unseeingly upwards.

Livio crouched down and gripped Luctus's hand hard, shaken by the weakness he could feel through the grip.

"Strength to your fight." Luctus breathed. "Go with him." With his remaining strength he pushed Livio's hand slightly in Vash's direction.

Livio gripped his hand harder as he felt it go limp.

"Luctus!" He called, but the man was gone.

This was wrong. Plants were not supposed to die. Wasn't that their calling card? Great power and to live outside of time? He took in a deep breath and breathed out his regret and resignation. He knew the man, no plant, was dead. He clenched his fist. It was not fair. From the little he had managed to glean from Luctus, the plant had been only twenty-five years old. He had lost his wife and family to Johnston and his sister to Ezrah. At least he had tried to avenge his sister. Livio placed the man's hand on his chest then closed his unseeing eyes. He now had another reason to go after that serpent Johnston.

He looked up as Vash stood and surveyed the damage. Several of the ship's officers would be bound to be along any moment. Why did the man wear such a distinctive red coat? Who else were they going to blame this whole incident on? And where the hell was Ezrah? Scarpered if he knew what was good for him. Livio sprang to his feet, as he remembered something else.

"Vash, we need to go, now!"

The man turned to him with a tear streaked face.

"But he..."

"Vash, we have to get that damned power draining coffin off this ship before it gets into the wrong hands. We can bury it or something, but we can't let the Terrans have it!"

The fastest way back to the room was up through the wreckage again. Livio found himself panting hard by the time he reached the room. Good, no Terrans here. He walked over to the upright coffin and tried to see how it disconnected from its attachment to the large power cell. A thick cable ran from the coffin to the heavy crate made of solid metal, but that was all one unit. There were no power couplings or anything. Stupid Terrans. He shot through the cable, emptying two magazines before he had even caused the slightest damage. Vash placed a hand over the gun, and he allowed himself to be pushed to one side. The plant took out his knife and to Livio's surprise, slit the cable long ways. He then reached inside the housing and pulled out three cables woven together.

"Stand back."

Livio stepped back a few paces. Vash waved him on a few more. It was a power coupling, really? Was there that much current? He positioned the knife, then stood and kicked it with his boot, leaping back as a sudden flair of white light engulfed him.

"Vash!" Livio yelled. The man was on fire! He leaped three rooms, grabbed a blanket and ran back and threw it over him, then beat at the flames.

"Ow! Ow! Stop that! Ow!"

The flames were still there, but Vash got to his knees and shoved him away. He lowered his head and clenched his fists and the flames subsided. He slumped forward and caught himself on his arms. His hair stood up in a static ball all around his head.

"What weird plant fire was that?"

Vash slowly breathed out.

"Ow." He slowly stood up.

"Well?" Livio demanded.

"Two more to go."

"What? Vash, what the hell was that fire? I saw it around Luctus."

Vash did not reply and picked up his knife again.

"I can do it this time!"

"Stay back!" Vash growled at him and placed the knife and kicked it again.

Livio didn't wait for him to fall, he grabbed him, and dragged him away from the cable, wrapping the blanket and beating at the flames.

"You're insane!" He yelled at Vash as he struggled to unwind himself from the blanket and stop shuddering where he sat half slumped on the floor.

"You're not doing that again." Livio snapped at him.

He grabbed the knife and copying Vash's stamping motion, slammed the knife through the third cable. He dimly heard a shout of horror behind him, and then pain slammed into every inch of his body. Everything went white for a very long second and he felt the fire in his blood burning all over his body. Damn, had he damaged himself that badly? He opened his eyes groggily to see Vash crouched over him, alarm and terror on his face.

"I told you to stay back!" Vash panted, though his shoulders drooped in relief.

"It was just fire." Livio said and elbowed himself up as he began to be able to feel his body once more. It was full of pain, but there were now legs full of pain and arms full of pain and a throbbing head, and they were all attached to him. This was a good thing.

"Just fire?" Vash gaped at him. "That was stored gate energy! You should be dead."

"Hah, I'm a little hard to kill." He grinned. "But it hurts like I was kicked the entire way from Lost July to December." He considered the haggard face beside him. "And you look like it."

.

They manhandled the coffin portion of the machine down through the sand steamer. No one bothered them, though they received strange glances for carrying a coffin draped in a table cloth stolen from the dining hall. They headed for the cargo doors and encountered people milling about. Some were people carrying the injured on stretchers. There were several people carrying coffins like they were, draped in curtains or torn cloth. Vash misjudged the edge of the ramp off the sand steamer and dropped his end of the coffin with a startled shriek. It was all Livio could do to grab it and clamp his boots on the ramp to prevent the coffin sliding down onto the sand. He held on feeling the sweat break out. How could Vash be so clumsy?

A crowd of curious and concerned people drifted over. They stared down at Vash who lay crumpled on the sand and blinked up at the sky as if he wondered what had happened. Several people hurried over and helped him to his feet.

"You're going to need stitches in that." One of the men told him, pointing to his sleeve.

Livio wished the man would hurry up, the coffin was not getting any lighter, and he did not want anyone asking too many close questions about its contents. He heard a familiar sheepish laugh and glanced down again. Vash was standing with people around him as he inspected the blood seeping from his badly torn sleeve. One of the women fished a handkerchief out of her pocket and wound it around his arm, coat and all, then knotted a fiddly little knot on the top.

"Get to the doctor soon, eh."

"I will." He smiled. "Thank you!"

Vash walked up the ramp, and favoured his prosthetic arm for lifting.

They made it down to the impromptu graveyard. The sand steamer was not going any further and unless they wanted to wait out a week in bandit territory, everyone had to find place among the convoy cars or the captured tanks and trucks Luctus and his men had used. The dead would be left to the sand.

He dug with a single-minded fury, ignoring the hot sun on his back and the sweat sticking his clothes to his body. The deeper he could bury this coffin the happier he would be. Also, Vash was beginning to fade. He could not blame him, after taking two shots of that awful fire. The pain was still fiery hot, and he was ravenously hungry. It would take a full day before the pain subsided and if he did not eat soon he felt as though his body might start consuming itself. Plants must have an enormous tolerance for pain and injury if all Vash showed for it was a slightly shaking arm when throwing out sand. They hit bedrock five feet down. Livio went in search of a pick axe and hacked another two feet deeper into the ground.

"You've dug a deep one here." One of the other grave diggers breathed, impressed.

"Dunes shift." Livio explained. "The hole in the bedrock is not going anywhere. My friend will rest in peace."

"My condolences."

"Appreciated."

As ironic as it had been, they had figured that the machine would be a good coffin for Luctus. They lowered the coffin in with the help of two other men and returned the dirt to the grave.

Livio leaned on his shovel and watched as Vash carved a headstone, destroying his knife edge as he dragged it through the rock.

"L. May he rest in peace, reunited with his family." He scrawled the date. They had agreed not to put any name. So, he had a romantic streak to him, it figured. He was quite surprised when the man stood at the foot of the grave and folded his hands together.

"Would you like me to say a prayer, son?"

A middle-aged priest in black cassock worn over grey overalls came up to the grave. Vash smiled with sad gratitude.

"Please."

Livio listened to the words he had heard too many times before. He gazed at the sorrowful smile on Vash's face and wondered how many times the man had heard them. He could not begin to imagine. How could he still smile like that, as if he had great hope for the dead? Livio smiled wryly, the dead were the lucky ones, no more pain or suffering.

* * *

Vash, despite trembling all over, insisted that they help dig graves. The suns were rising by the time they had dug their fourth. Livio felt that he might fall over with hunger. They interred the body wrapped in cloth, because there were no more coffins to hold it. Livio waited impatiently as Vash watched the funeral rites then grabbed the man by the arm before he could offer any more labour.

"We need food!" He insisted.

"Oh man, I am starving!" Vash exclaimed. "Why didn't you say so before?"

"What? You were too busy telling everyone that we'd be digging graves!"

"We could have stopped for food."

"What? You were waiting on me?"

"I didn't think that you were that hungry."

"I'm ravenous!" Livio complained in exasperation, and then considered the finer point of the conversation. "Do you have food with you?"

"Back at the truck, come on! We might be lucky and Lina will have it cooked for us!"

"Lina?"

"A friend of mine, it's her truck."

.

Vash walked back to their truck by the scent of the cooking alone. The convoy has spread out in a U shape around the cargo doors of the sand steamer. Armed guards stood on the outer ring of trucks, and they had allowed Vash through without question. However, the guard put out her hand when Livio tried to walk through.

"He's an old friend of mine." Vash convinced the guard with a broad smile. "He'll be bunking with us."

She did not look that convinced, then shrugged.

"It's on your head. Oh, and Ericks, the convoy director said he wants to see you."

"I'll find him, thanks." Vash smiled.

"I'm not bunking with you." Livio growled as soon as they were out of earshot. "I'm going after Johnston the moment I can get my hands on a tank."

"Eat with us. We'll discuss the plans over breakfast."

The scent was spicy rice with grilled meat. The twins had a fire going and several of the people from the nearby trucks had gathered to share the meal. There was still a faint chill in the air so people were wrapped in blankets and crowded near the fire.

Vash took a deep breath of the tasty scent and his stomach growled.

Livio laughed.

There was a sudden shout and Vash turned to see Doug leap to his feet, flinging the blanket back. His sister overtook him as they ran for them. Vash braced himself for the impact, but both twins collided with Livio, sending him staggering backwards, and grabbing them to stay upright. Amid the sobs and muffled murmurs, he caught a word.

"Dad!"

Livio disengaged his arm guns and slung them off his hip belt then gathered a twin under each arm, the three of them put their heads together and were talking rapidly, the twins uncannily interrupting each other and finishing each other's sentences. From what Vash could hear they were giving Livio the rundown of their time spent with him.

He watched them for a moment, then realised he was still bracing himself for a hug he would never receive. He shook himself slightly and walked on, smiling as best he could. He helped himself to a large bowl of food and sat eating, enjoying the warmth of the suns.

The twins hurried back to the fire, scooped up a huge portion of breakfast and took it back to their father. They sat on a boulder several yarz from the nearest truck and kept up their nonstop explanations.

Vash helped himself to seconds. He was still famished. He washed it down with water, and then had thirds. Livio, despite holding a conversation that had now lasted the better part of an hour, was on his fourths. The twins began to run out of steam by the time the hour came and went. They kept pointing in his direction, so they had reached that part of the story.

The group eventually broke up and the twins trooped back into the truck, pausing by him.

"You didn't say you knew our dad!" Jasmine scolded him.

"I didn't know he was." Vash smiled, feeling the shock and private disappointment ease over into relief. He could honestly trust these kids to Livio's protection.

Vash watched as Livio seated himself on the rock beside him, his expression serious as if he were trying to find the right words to say.

"So, they're your kids." Vash interrupted the brooding.

Livio gave a nod.

"How did you meet Chronica?"

Livio grunted, his cheeks reddening.

"It's a long story."

"The summary of which is?" Vash said smoothly, amused at his discomfort.

"I shot her to protect you. We fought like cats in a sack. Er, well, the twins happened."

"In the sack." Vash snickered.

Livio punched his arm, and then wrapped his fist in his other hand, wincing.

"Ow, hitting that prosthetic is like hitting rock!"

"Ericks!"

Vash raised his head to see the caravan director hurrying over to them.

"Why do they call you that name?" Livio asked.

"I'll tell you some time." Vash replied as the man stopped beside the fire.

"Lina was shot."

Vash leaped to his feet in panic.

"It's okay." The caravan director put out a hand to stop him

Vash hardly felt it.

"She's fine and so is her baby, you don't have to worry."

Baby? Vash blinked at him as the world roared with sudden silence. The man continued to speak, but the words seemed to come from a great distance.

"She's in the steamer hospital; they had to take the bullet out of her leg."

There was a pause.

"Is he okay?"

"He will be. We'll go over to the hospital now." Livio assured the director.

Vash felt a heavy arm around his shoulders.

"Oi! You were razzing me about my kids. Speak for yourself."

Vash stared at Livio in horror. Lina had lied to him. Damn. Damn! Damn that girl, trying to protect him. He felt tears slip down his face.

"Vash?" Livio gave him a worried look. "Crap man, what's wrong? Didn't you know? You did a good enough job with my kids they adore you. You'll be fine with your own."

He opened and closed his mouth. This was not his story to tell. No. He put his hand over his mouth, unable to think. She'd lied to him. He felt as if his heart had shattered into a thousand pieces. He'd been unable to protect her. Oh Lina. Livio thumped him on the back and it hurt.

"Ow!"

"Come let's go and see your girl. It'll cheer you up. And you need to visit the hospital anyway, your arm is bleeding again. Do you have a change of clothes? Your coat is wrecked."

* * *

When Lina woke, the strange environment and scent of the hospital faded when she saw Vash sitting in a chair waiting for her. He wore his old shirt and brown trousers held up by suspenders, and his black hair was a ragged mop around his ears. In fact, it looked as though he should have been in the bed rather than her; he had a bandage around his right arm and plasters taped to the right side of his face. She smiled at him.

"They dug the bullet out, it just hit muscle. The say you'll be good for driving in several weeks." He returned her smile. "The twins assure me that they can handle the truck."

"Good." She breathed. Oh goodness she should not have shifted it hurt like hells fires were eating at her leg. She gritted her teeth and stayed still until the pain subsided to a manageable fiery grumble.

"What happened to you?" She asked.

"I fell off the sand steamer." He laughed sheepishly. "I took a chunk out of my arm which they had to stitch back." He shrugged as if this were nothing. Wow, if the pain were anything like what she was going through then she did not want to know what he was feeling.

"Oh Ericks." She breathed, smiling at his disaster prone antics.

He clasped her hand with his own, unusually he did not wear a glove, and she could feel the calluses on his skin. She was surprised at the gentle way he rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb.

"They say the baby is still okay, you don't have to worry."

She felt shock kill her senses and snatched her hand back from him. He was still wearing that easy smile of his.

"They told you?" She heard her voice coming from a long distance away.

"Well, of course. They think it is my child and, well, it's your story to tell if you wish, so I let it slide."

She felt her cheeks blush crimson then felt nauseatingly ill. All she could do was turn her head to the side and not look at him.

"I didn't want you to know." Her voice cracked and the words came out in a hoarse whisper.

They sat in silence for a long while.

"I think I'll sleep now." She said, unable to face him again.

He stood and squeezed her hand again.

"They say you'll be released in a few days, Jasmine is designing a window that she is going to put in by your bed so you can watch the desert as we drive."

"Tell Jasmine she is a treasure."

She heard the door close and lifted her hand. She watched as the droplets ran down her arm. He cried the tears she could not.


	18. Chapter 18

_**Chapter 18**_

Warrens City

 _Lina felt the heat was beginning to get to her. She had not had time to find a hat. She shaded her eyes for a moment, watching the road through the desert. The dust thrown up by the vehicles rose in a plume behind them. They would soon be close enough. Patience. She breathed in, and out and counted her breaths and felt her calm return and the heat exist only on the outside._

* * *

Meryl glanced up as Abe sauntered into the office looking very smug and Milly ran in after him.

"Meryl! Have you heard the news?"

There was only kind of news that would produce that reaction from both of them.

"What has Vash destroyed now?"

"Gosh Meryl, how did you know?"

"Female intuition." Abe grinned.

Meryl glared at Abe and turned her attention to Milly.

"Where did you hear this?"

"It was just on the satellite while I was in the bakery." Milly explained. "They say he destroyed a sand steamer out beyond Lost July. He left it as a wreck in the middle of the desert. The steamer company had to pay thousands to get it hauled back into town and repaired. They said he fled with the help of accomplices..." Milly fell silent, her voice trailed off.

"Accomplices doesn't sound like Vash." Meryl murmured.

Abe coughed.

"He is a drifter, but recently there have been those who follow him."

Meryl turned to glare at the plant, he was annoyingly obtuse and unerringly correct. Abe put up his hands as if she were holding him at gunpoint and continued to speak.

"The rest of the report said that he was travelling in a truck with another man, two children, and a pretty girl they say is his girlfriend."

Meryl sat down, rather calmly.

"I think we can consider this as yet another of those misinformed reports." She said coolly.

Abe leaned back against the map of No Man's Land on the wall opposite her desk. The confirmed reports of his location were pinned in red, the misinformation in blue and the uncertain in white. So far they had been able to track him only several towns west of where they had lost him, then he'd vanished. From there, Lost July was at least a two-month's journey by steamer if one took the most direct route. He selected a red pin and poked it into the area near the city.

"It's been four months." He said. "Who do we have in Lost July?"

"It's a Terran city now, and I haven't been there, so I have no contacts." Meryl explained.

Abe selected a handful of white pins, and then put them out in a circle around the red one he had just planted.

"Oh, that is clever!" Milly exclaimed. "We just have to look there."

"Yes." Abe grinned. "Now all we have to do is convince Meryl that leaving the paperwork to me is a good idea."

Meryl frowned at the pins.

"It's the distance a man can travel on foot in the time it will take you to get there." Abe clarified.

"Who says he's on foot?" Meryl demanded.

"Ah."

Abe took out more pins and added another circle quite a distance beyond it.

"That's for a man in a truck with companions."

"But that's quarter of the continent!" Milly exclaimed in dismay.

"Yes, but it cuts out three quarters, better than the nothing we've heard." Abe bounced pins in his hand.

"I'll need an hour to go home and grab my pack." Meryl stated. "Milly, go and buy us steamer tickets for Lost July." She paused. "We'll travel steerage, I'm sick of being recognised."

"I've been in steerage on those steamers. You don't want to do that." Abe warned. "You have enough money to at least travel second class."

Milly looked questioningly between them. Meryl checked the time, if Milly left now, they could have the tickets and be on the steamer tonight. She glared at Abe and at how he always timed his arguments to win them.

"Second class." She said.

.

She returned to the office to meet Milly and to explain to the others that Abe was in charge with her gone. There were eight of them now: two other plants, Teres and Calor, with black streaked hair that she had recruited, and three human girls whom they hired to handle the correspondence. Abe was a lifesaver, Meryl grudgingly admitted, he kept the business together. He seemed to have an instinct for a good idea and could usually talk her out of her less than stellar suggestions.

She found she did not have to explain at all, as Abe was sitting on his desk, grinning as she walked in.

"Well now, I have payroll all to myself this month, who should I hand out bonuses to?" He looked around the office and the four women raised their hands. Teres rolled his eyes and went back to his work.

"Abe." Meryl groaned.

He chuckled.

"I've a few cousins and some nephews and nieces I could add to the payroll..."

"Abe!" He had no family she knew. She rolled her eyes at him.

"Oh, so angry?"

Meryl clenched her fist and he leaned back, putting a hand dramatically on his chest.

"Meryl, have I ever been bad for business?"

Meryl scowled at him and Milly laughed from behind her.

Abe winked at Milly.

"Of course I would include some relatives of yours Milly girl; I've seen that mailing list."

Milly laughed again.

Realising she was only there as an amusing distraction, Meryl grabbed her bag.

"Let's go Milly!"

Abe chuckled.

"Smile at him when you see him!" Abe called after her. "Yelling at him like you do me won't help your case!"

She spun around to snap at Abe, but Milly caught her shoulder.

"Let him be, he's only teasing because he's going to miss us, that's all."

* * *

 _Lina knelt up on the roof of the house, sighting her target along the rifle. The simmering heat tried to confuse her with a mirage. There. The truck came into range, wait, wait until it was right, now. She smiled grimly as the tyre blew sending the truck snaking off the road, grinding its axel into the sand. It fell over slowly. She took a moment to wipe the blood off her hand, then as much as she could get off the trigger. She waited for her next target._

* * *

Meryl was glad that the sand steamer docked outside Lost July. She did not want to enter the city. The Terrans had done a fair job of restoring the quarters near the west gate, but scaffolding still surrounded most of the buildings.

They hired thomas's, restocked their supplies from the market then headed east, out into the desert. They discovered that they were not the only people on the trail. They saw at least three cars in the first hour, and a train of thomas's coming the other way in the next. Everyone could point them on to 'The Steamer Graves' as the spot had been named, and it seemed that curiosity had called a number of people out to see the site.

After two months travel on various sand steamers, and now four days of plodding through the desert they reached the spot.

There were already four cars and a picket line of tomas's there and people were milling about inspecting the graves. Meryl was disgusted at the price of tomas feed and water, but paid it, or she'd have to find a rock to tie the tomas's to and use their own water which was already low.

"Outrageous!" She muttered to Milly.

"Everyone has to make money somehow." Milly said with a smile. "But we can see the graves for free."

Meryl stuck her hands in her pockets, great consolation that was. She had wanted to see the steamer, but it was many iles east and had already been repaired. The shipping company for some reason was reluctant to release the images of the damages. Abe had sent a message suggesting they decline the offer by the Terran's to sell them the images at an exorbitant price. He mentioned that the graves were possibly worth a look, and they could photograph the site for themselves once they were there.

It was hot out in the baking sun beside the forty-seven graves. They strolled through the graveyard with ten other people. Milly carefully photographed each headstone. Meryl began to feel a familiar prickling between her shoulder blades, and caught herself before she could glance around. Someone was watching her, but she should not be so recognisable out here, surely? She had had a new cape made for herself, in a nondescript pale grey this time. Milly had worriedly confessed to having given her old one to Jasmine. Meryl dimly remembered having removed it, after feeling disorientated and hot. She'd left it in the saddle bag with the doughnuts, then on discovering that the twins had vanished again, had gone back to the shop to look for them. That was all she recalled before waking up in the truck. She smoothed the cloak's folds. If she wore white, she had every second stranger greeting her in the street. It was disconcerting. The grey had only served to see that only every fifth stranger recognised her.

Not a day went by that she did not sincerely regret having taken that NLBC job. Milly had moved down several graves, taking photos, so Meryl turned as if to gaze out over the plain and mesas around them. Of the twelve people wandering the yard, ten were watching the graves, one was picking his nose and the other was watching Milly. Meryl sighed to herself then turned before the young man noticed her; he had the same interested smile as many young men seemed to get around Milly. It was then that she noticed the skinny man running the tomas stall lower a camera. She pretended not to have seen. Damn. If he had taken it, her face would be clear. What would it prove? The best that any informant could have was that Meryl Stryfe was inspecting areas of plant activity; she would include this visit in the reports for Abe to send out. They would know anyway.

She ambled along the row of graves, reading the names. Some of them had 'unknown', below which several names were written. Meryl winced, possibly the remains had not been enough to identify the people. Different hands had written the different notices, composing variations on rest in peace, to some quite witty epitaphs. She passed one naming the deceased as 'L' and felt her heart rate slow and the world go calm around her. It was in _his_ handwriting. She walked on, as she had done for the other graves. Oh they could not get out of here soon enough. They had the confirmation she needed; now all they had to do was head west of Lost July. She knew that that was his heading; they were now only two months behind him, less if their luck held.

* * *

 _Lina flexed her hand, now crusted with blood. At least the wound had stopped bleeding. She lay calculating who was where by the gunfire. Vash was easy to place; his gun sang to her, and the way he fired it. Livio used his submachine guns, which got lost in the other gunshots at times. They were both to the east now, where the worst of the fighting was. She heard another sound, which made her flick her head around. Someone was using her guns, near the truck. The twins? The twins were fighting? Where was... no. She must not think. She could not look away from the road she was sniping. She tightened her grip then forced herself to relax. She would miss the next target if she were tense. The Terrans had become cautious, realising they had to stay on the road, but had to protect their convoy. She wished they would try off-road: it was quicksand country out there. The convoy had reorganised itself, now sending their tanks ahead. Where was a bazooka when she needed one? They had not had them in the shooting competition. She had only managed to steal several rifles and a box of ammunition before things had gone completely to hell._

* * *

Lina held the tiny child as the twins and their father took the full role of driving. The child was born two months premature, and the doctors questioned her in a rather puzzled manner about her conception date. According to them, the child was almost as big as he should be if she had carried him to full term. They eventually backed off when she stubbornly stuck to her date. They had joined another sand steamer, a smaller one carrying three hundred souls, though with a larger a convoy. Vash was mostly away from the truck, he had taken on a job as a bodyguard on the steamer. He had not said anything, but she suspected he had made arrangements, as she never saw a medical bill. She hated to be so dependent on him, and began to slowly exercise again, at this stage all she could manage were stretches, but it was a start to bring her body back to its former fitness. The doctor on the steamer recommended that she bring the baby back for a check up after a week, but Jasmine had stopped her.

"He won't understand him." The girl had said, curling up on her bed and cradling the baby. "When are you going to name him? We can't keep calling him Top Knot."

He had been born with a tuft of bond hair right on the top of his head.

She did not know how to explain to Jasmine that if she did name him, then he was truly hers. Some part of her mind did not acknowledge that.

"Why won't the doctor understand him?" Lina asked.

Jasmine glanced up and grinned at her.

"He's half plant, isn't he? I mean he grew faster than normal inside you, and I checked the records, human newborns don't usually gain twelve ounces in a week."

She reached out and gently stroked the baby. He curled his hand around her finger. Of course, she had not considered that aspect of it.

"What records?" She inquired, there were records on plant children?

"Vash has them; mom gave them to him when he was asking questions. She says he grew up human and had to learn to be a plant the hard way." Jasmine stroked the baby's head and cooed at him.

"Why don't you name him?" Lina suggested.

"I already did." She grinned. "Doug and I call him Mick, Mickey or Miracle, but Doug says the last is lame. According to the records most plant babies born to human females don't live."

"I think I need to see those records."

"Well." Jasmine said awkwardly, twisting her fingers together. "You're going to have to talk to Vash. He didn't like having us around at first either, so his own kid has him avoiding you."

Lina felt her cheeks blush, was this what Vash had meant by 'letting it slide' when he had spoken of assumptions? She felt faintly ill; she could never have that sort of relationship with him. He was too much like a father to her.

"He's not his child."

Jasmine stared at her in astonishment.

"But he's half plant. I can sense it."

"His father is dead." Lina declared feeling the gripping fear crack around her. Dead and gone and never in this life to come near her again. She felt Jasmine put her arms around her and she realised she was crying, strange gasping sobs.

It was only when she felt strong arms lift her and place her in the bed that she realised she had spent what must have been the last two hours sobbing on the floor. She took the baby from Jasmine who was watching her with large worried eyes. She retreated to sit with her brother and father in the cab, and Lina had to look at the kind eyes and sad smile of the man who had seated himself on the floor.

"His name is Mick." She said and felt an odd sense of release.

Vash put his hand on her head in a calming, comforting manner and then fished something out his pocket. It was a rectangular piece of plastic.

"It's a reading device." He explained. "I've disabled all the functions except the selection and scroll keys so you can't do anything to it. It contains what there is to know about plants. Not all of it is happy, but I think you will be in a better place knowing everything."

* * *

 _Lina aimed for the side plates of the tank, theoretically the armour should not be so thick there, but after watching her bullets deflect, she desisted. A pity, she had no way of stopping them. The damned Terrans were beginning to learn the ways of No Man's Land. They knew to drive with an armed convoy around the small steamer they had acquired. It was odd for a steamer, mostly cargo, as it had no windows and she could count six plant orbs on the top, covered by enormous tarpaulins. She did not try shooting the Steamer treads; she did not have enough ammunition to squander it in a futile gesture. She turned her attention to the lighter cars that were coming trying to conceal themselves among the tanks. She had been doing well in the competition, well enough to get up the noses of the more dedicated gunmen. She had only really been competing with Livio, as she had wanted to test herself against him. She had not noticed how she had been upsetting the others until it was too late._

* * *

Lina stretched and felt the way her body responded. Not as fit and easily moved as before. The scar tissue on her leg felt slightly tight, but she had been massaging it and putting creams on and the scar tissue around the bullet wound was softening better than it had at first. She could now put her full weight on her leg. She had not lost the weight she had gained from the pregnancy, but that would go in time. She did not like her stomach, but appreciated the curves it put on her backside, and laughed to herself. Carlston would never leave her alone if he could see her now.

She gave Jasmine a silent signal of thanks, and picked up her bag and headed out of the truck. They had a babysitting arrangement for whenever they were in a city. She headed down to the shooting range. She was determined to get her practice in, as she preferred the position of caravan guard to dancer.

Vash walked back to the truck in the scorching heat, thankful yet again, that Lina had had the foresight to buy the monstrosity. Once inside, he could relax, and enjoy the company of people who knew him well. He was feeling out of sorts. The pretty lady he had been charming for the last week had passionately met her hefty boyfriend at this stop. He sighed. He never seemed to get a break.

He hauled himself up into the cab and closed the door behind him, ah the cool air inside was wonderful.

"Ericks!" Lina called and he was pleased to hear that excitement in her voice. It had been a long time since she had expressed such joy. He climbed past the seats into the passenger section and found the twins seated on the upper bunk, Doug busy having a tug of war with a knotted rag gripped tightly by Mick who lay beside him. Lina and Livio sat on the lower bunks opposite each other. Lina waved a piece of paper at him.

"There's this shooting competition in a neighbouring town!" She called. "I've entered the three of us." Her hand motion included him.

His face fell.

"No." He breathed softly. He hated such things. People died.

"It's an excellent idea!" Livio exclaimed, grinning. "Stop being a curmudgeon, Vash!"

Lina gave him a determined stare and flicked the paper imperiously at him. He took it reluctantly and gave it a cursory glance then went still.

"Okay. I'm with you."

Lina and Livio glanced at each other.

"Why are you suddenly agreeing after pulling that face?" Lina asked suspiciously.

He smiled at them, this was actually going to work out better than he had expected.

"An old friend of mine, the gunsmith in fact, lives in that town."


	19. Chapter 19

_**Chapter 19**_

 _Lina ducked instinctively as she heard a rifle go off. Bullets bit into the parapet she hid behind. Time to leave. Lina grabbed her rifle and slung the box of ammo over her shoulders and crawled out of her spot as hastily as she could. She was not doing much good sniping tanks, and the fighting was getting closer to where the truck was parked. She took out her pistol and sneaked across the city as fast as she could. She surprised a group of men who had been part of the competition. They lowered their guns._

" _Need an escort, Miss Lina?" One asked, doffing his cap at her._

" _I need to get to my truck."_

" _We'll get you there. Hopefully get some of these fly bitten Terrans while we're at it."_

* * *

The town was not much larger than it had been when Vash had last visited it. Their truck did not attract too many stares, as there were already many people in the town for the competition. They checked at the saloon, the boarding house and several listed rented rooms and discovered that there was no available accommodation.

"We can sleep in the truck again." Lina said reluctantly.

"Let's visit Frank Marlon before we find a place to park for the night." Vash suggested and directed her through the streets to the outskirts where the gunsmith's house was. From the sound of it, there were several people making use of the firing range he had in his back yard. Lina pulled up in the street outside the house and killed the engine. She winced as another round of shots thundered through the air and then pulled on the ear muffler she had made for Mick down over his ears.

"You say he's good?" Lina said suspiciously.

Vash smiled slightly.

"The best."

"Maybe I'll get him to look at my piece too." Livio said.

They gathered at the door and Lina knocked. There was a long silence before, between the reverberations of gunshots, they heard a chair scrape back and the latch on the door pulled back.

"I've got enough work to keep me busy till next year. You should have had your gun serviced before you came. Go round the side and your name to the end of the queue to use the shooting range." He repeated this in a rapid monotone without even looking at them then closed the door, but Vash slipped forward and jammed his boot in it.

The man stared down at the boot, his eyes widening as it travelled up the brown trousers and linen shirt and suspenders. His eyes took in Vash's face and he slowly opened the door.

"Vash the Stampede." He whispered then glanced hastily around to check no one had heard him. He then took in the collection of people around Vash and raised his eyebrows. "And associates."

"We're his friends." Livio said with a grin. "He say's you're the best, so we all wanted to meet you."

Marlon paused then gave a nod and a faint smile as his shoulders slumped slightly.

"Come in. You kids are not to touch anything."

He closed the door behind them and Vash leaned against the wall as the others found places to settle in the small room. It was his workshop and kitchen. At the table sat a young man with light brown hair, carefully reassembling the gun he had just finished cleaning. He was clearly no relative of Marlon, being taller and broader across the shoulders. He did not look up from his work as the door shut out the din from the shooting range.

"You here for the competition?" Marlon asked, raising an eyebrow at Vash. "Didn't think you'd go for such things."

"Someone entered my name for me." He nodded at Lina.

"As Vash the Stampede?" Marlon asked incredulously.

Their eyes flickered in alarm to the other man in the room.

"Don't mind Zachery, he's an old friend in the trade. He's helping me with all the extra work."

Zachery turned then, and Vash wondered where he had seen the man before, but the memory eluded him. He did not like such a puzzle.

"I'll vouch for him." Marlon said, eyeing the guarded stare Livio was giving the man. "He can keep secrets, but you didn't put Vash's name on the listing did you? I was wondering why this town was so full of idiots!"

"Of course I didn't!" Lina snapped. "I don't want bounty hunters all over us again. I thought it would be a good way to show off our skills and earn some money."

"You're that good?" Marlon asked her, amused.

"Better." Lina said stubbornly raising her chin. She hiked Mick up on her hip and there was an awkward silence as Marlon stared at her and the child with a pained expression on his face.

Vash put his hand on his shoulder and released him when he glanced up at him.

"We just came by to say hello." He said with a smile. "We know you can't fix our guns now, we'll ask after the competition is over. We're headed out to park on the outskirts for the night. Thank you for letting us in."

Marlon placed a hand over the latch as Vash reached for it.

"No. There are some very unscrupulous people around here now. Bounty hunters. I recognised you in that casual getup and with the black hair, so will others. Keep out of sight until tomorrow. Get one of your friends to park that truck of yours in the shed next to the house, and wait here while I go and get us lunch."

.

Livio helped Marlon cajole the last of the practicing gunmen from the range as the suns set. Marlon watched them go with a wry twist to his mouth.

"Vain fools, most of them." He grumbled. "Don't know the respect needed for handling a gun."

"Unless you have a tutor who has gained that, you have to live through some horrendous pain to understand it yourself." Livio returned. "I don't mind them so much; it's the shoddy shooting and lackadaisical attention to practice that gets me."

Marlon glanced at him, his eyes travelling over the tattoos on his face. He gave a grunt and went inside. Vash was sitting on the bench by the door as they entered. Zachery was still busy with his repair work. The twins, Lina and the baby were in the truck. Vash had probably come inside to escape Mick's horrendous wailing. Livio decided he would also remain away as long as he could. He shut the door, which mercifully blocked out the sound.

Vash got to his feet and took out a gun. Livio felt a thrill of fear run through him as he watched the tall man hand the black revolver across to Marlon. The gunsmith took it and turned it over.

"It's like your old one." He murmured.

"It is its companion. It belonged to my brother." Vash said with a strange level sadness in his voice.

"Oh." Marlon's stare fixed on the gun and he inspected it professionally. "I can have it fixed for you tonight if you wish."

"No. There is no hurry, but it would be good to have it repaired."

Vash smiled, then with a wave, let himself out.

Marlon glanced at Livio as the door shut with a click.

"How well do you know Vash?" The gunsmith asked the picked up a cloth and wrapped the gun in it and put it into a drawer.

It was a test. He did not know if he would pass it, but Marlon seemed to know something deeper.

"I used to work for his brother. I was an assassin. I tried to kill him, in fact I killed his best friend," Livio lowered his head and breathed out, "my best friend too, come to that. But he got his hooks into me good, with all his mercy talk. I live each day in the hope that I can somehow make this world a better place, because otherwise my past will curse my future."

Marlon nodded gravely. Livio eyed Zachary, the assistant was staring at him with far too much knowing in his eyes. He knew the man was no apprentice gunsmith. But it was not his business what he did with his own time, just as it was not Zachary's business what Livio did with his.

"What happened to his brother?" Marlon asked, taking the free chair by his workbench and seating himself.

Livio seated himself against the bench by the door. This would be an opportune moment to offer a man a drink, but that did not occur to Marlon.

"All I can tell is what I've seen and heard. The Terrans are hunting plants, forcing them to discharge all their powers and then sending them out into the world to be hunted down like rabid dogs. An evil sick game cooked up by a cretin by the name of Johnston. It is my thought that perhaps he got caught up in that."

There was a long silence.

"You don't believe it." Marlon observed.

"No. Another plant challenged Vash and bragged to me that he had shot Knives in front of his eyes. Vash was crying about that, but I don't believe that story either. I don't know what to think. He won't say anything and I don't know how to ask."

He noticed Marlon's worried expression.

"We are lucky it's Vash who is after Johnston, if it had been Knives avenging the killing of his brother, all Terrans would be dead. In fact this whole world would probably no longer exist."

Marlon leaned forward.

"Are they so different?"

Livio felt a strange panic thrill through him. Vash clearly trusted this man, but perhaps it only went as far as a business arrangement. He hoped he had not said too much. The man was waiting for a response and he shrugged to rid himself of a shudder he always felt when thinking about Knives.

"They are polar opposites, it is frightening."

Marlon nodded and smiled slightly.

"That is the reason I don't mind fixing his guns. In fact I don't charge him, ever." He grinned. "You will have to pay, as will that feisty girl with the baby. How old is she?"

"I don't know. I think she's seventeen." Livio shrugged.

"Is she as good as she claims?"

Livio was startled when Zachary spoke; the man had ignored them all afternoon.

"She's one of the best sharp shooters I've met." Livio said. He shrugged as Marlon gave him a rather incredulous stare and Zachary took the news with an abrupt nod and turned away, as if that settled it.

"That doesn't say much in a combat situation," Livio continued, "sometimes they go to pieces when they have to make rapid decisions."

"Accuracy and timing under pressure." Marlon sighed. "I've never seen anyone best Vash for that. She's not going to make any showing against him."

"Oh, I'll give him a run for his money." Livio declared without bravado.

* * *

 _Lina darted back around the corner as bullets bored into the dusty road. The men following her grabbed her and hauled her to safety._

" _No!" Don't shoot!" She grabbed the elbow of the man who went to fire around the corner._

" _But..."_

" _I think I startled my friends." She said and pulled her green waistcoat off. She waved it around the corner._

" _Jasmine!" She yelled. "It's me, Lina!"_

 _There was silence._

" _Lina!" A wail of a shriek answered her. Jasmine sounded hysterical._

" _Stay here!" Lina ordered the men and peered quickly around the corner. She put her foot out and no one fired at her. She sprinted across the road to the house. The door was open and the gunsmith's house had been ransacked. Lina felt her heart sink as she saw all the guns had gone._

" _Jasmine?"_

" _On the roof!"_

 _She walked out into the garden to find Jasmine's tear stained face staring down at her. She pointed further down the road._

" _Lina!" Jasmine shrieked._

 _She turned to see the men who had escorted her peering around the wall._

" _You can go back and find some more Terrans!" She called to them. "They've been through here, ransacked the place."_

 _The men waved and hurried away. Lina hurried over to the truck. Doug scrambled down from his hiding place on the opposite side of the street and ran her as Jasmine shinnied down the ladder she slid off the roof of the shed. Lina pulled them into the shed after her._

" _We kept Mick safe!" Jasmine hiccupped through her tears. "There were these big men who wanted to raid Marlon's shop. We shot them." She wiped at her face. "They all fell down. I don't know if they were dead, but they didn't move and their friends carried them off." Her voice shook._

" _We stole all the guns and ammo so the next time they came they found nothing." Doug said gruffly, trying not to cry himself. She put her arm around him; she forgot how young they were._

 _Lina smiled._

" _Where are they now?"_

" _In the truck."_

 _Her smile broadened._

* * *

Vash ran his fingers over the night's growth of stubble. It looked as though he had a shadow across his chin, all his hair grew out black now. He considered himself in the mirror; it must be like how the humans went silvery grey at the end of their lives.

"Oh no!"

He turned to Lina in surprise as she barged into the tiny bathroom in the truck, picked up his razor and folded it away.

"And don't bother to do your hair." She fluffed his fringe into his eyes. "You're incognito today, remember!"

He looked at himself in the mirror and a slow smile came over his face. If that was how she wanted it.

He wore the most oversized of his old brown dusters and trooped after Lina as she and Livio went up to register. The twins, Mick and Marlon would be joining them later. Livio had almost split his sides laughing at Vash's clothes, and then had pulled on his gun-slinging outfit of a hat and cape. Lina had opted for a shirt and trousers, with a green waistcoat. She had pinned up her hair and stuffed it in a hat, but try as hard as she might, no one would believe she were anything but a woman. Zachary wore the casual clothes he repaired guns in, and carried two pistols strapped to his hips.

The competition opened mid morning and many of the town's folk turned out to watch. Vash was thoroughly enjoying himself. Livio caught on after he had fired two shots. He managed to knock over the targets, but gain no points as he had only trimmed the edge enough to topple them, but not shot made a hole in the score area. Livio had raised an eyebrow and mouthed 'ten thousand' with a shrug as if to say, his loss. It had taken Lina a little longer. She'd worriedly come up to him and asked if his gun was in working order, then had asked if he was ill, and only after watching him knock the bottle targets off the wall with a misplaced ricochet shot, caught on.

"You're messing around!" She growled as she returned from having knocked all five off in rapid succession.

"Incognito." He said and she gave him a withering glare. Since then she would roll her eyes at him whenever she had to step up, as he found himself disqualified after the second round. Zachery found himself out in the third round and joined Vash in the shade.

"Never thought I'd find you out here, ZT." Vash murmured as he leaned against the wall beside him.

Zachary grinned slightly.

"She warned me you were clever." He nodded at Livio. "He's known as the Trip of Death, why are you with him?"

Vash shrugged.

"You have too much faith in people." Zachary scolded. "That sort of life devastates a soul, he might act well now, but he is a monster inside."

Vash gave him a long sad stare, then turned back to the competition.

"I never said we were exempt." Zachary muttered and looked up at the sky.

Zachary noticed Livio watching Lina and then recognised a slight change in tactics as the competition progressed. He carefully picked off the stronger opponents and through seemingly accidental losses allowed the weaker ones to challenge Lina. It irked his sense of wariness. The man was not supposed to have that sort of empathy, yet he did. He glanced at Vash, he had never quite believed it, but perhaps the stories were true. He changed people.

The competition was organised so as to have a winner at each event, but after three event losses one was eliminated from the competition. Lina could certainly hold her own. She could use a revolver, a rifle and a shotgun with ease and the fact that she was a young girl began to grate on some of the men there. By the final round of events, the only other woman in the competition had eliminated, and Lina walked away with the prize with ease. Moving targets were her passion, and from the expression on Livio's face, he was not sure he had intended to be outshot by her.

They returned to Marlon's place after receiving the prizes. The twins slumped down beside their father on the bench beside the door.

"Your face when you didn't hit the target, dad!" Jasmine laughed.

"It was deliberate." Livio declared.

"You mean you let me win?" Lina's voice went icily quiet from where she sat at the kitchen table counting out the money. Zachary held Mick in the crook of his arm as he sat on the workbench chair. It was not often he was impressed, but this girl had something.

Livio's his jaw worked but nothing came out. Marlon turned and hid his grin.

Vash laughed as he slouched against the door.

"You can't defend that position."

Livio stood up and glared at him.

"And what was all that shoddy shooting we saw from you today?" He demanded, grabbing Vash's coat.

"Incognito." Vash hunched his neck further into the brown coat and gave him a wide-eyed stare of innocence.

Livio shoved him away and Vash laughed, catching himself on the windowsill and slouching against the door again.

"It was great fun. Did you hear them cheering me?"

"Cat calls of 'Nearly hit Ericks' doesn't count as cheering!"

"And they laughed." Vash grinned to himself with his hands in his pockets.

"Have you been drinking?" Livio demanded tetchily as he sat down.

"Not yet." Vash laughed. "But I know the barkeep in this town. She's wonderful!"

"There!" Lina stood up from her chair and tapped the money into a neat pile. She shoved it back into the envelope in which they had presented it to her. They all stared at her as she walked across to Vash and pressed it into his hands.

"That's yours."

Vash gaped at her in astonishment. She folded her arms and smiled up at him.

"I don't owe you anymore; you saved my life, looked after me and paid my medical bills. That is repayment. Mick and I no longer have any obligation. You may leave. You need to leave. I see it in your eyes."

He blinked at her. He had never had someone dismiss him like that. No, he considered it, Meryl had done it to him the first time he had met them, except she had given him ten double dollars and a box of doughnuts. Lina looked pleased with herself.

"Lina." He held out the envelope to her with a smile. "I'm a drifter, what would I do with ten thousand?"

"Get yourself a new coat and arm, pay Marlon for repairing your gun, get a first class steamer ticket instead of steerage. Money can get you nice things, treat yourself."

He opened his mouth to retort and she rounded on him.

"Get the hell out of here and after Johnston! I want you to kick him so hard that I read about his head bouncing off the fifth moon on front page of the newspapers!"

Vash shakily put the envelope down on the table then hauled up a smile as best he could.

"Lina." Marlon said suddenly, interrupting them.

She smiled at the gunsmith.

"Lina! Look at him!"

She blinked at the change in Marlon's voice and turned to look at Vash. He did not know what expression was on his face but Lina frowned slightly.

"Do you even know what you've done?" Marlon put a hand on Vash's shoulder.

"You've just paid him like a hit..."

Vash clamped his hand over Marlon's mouth.

"Leave it. She never meant it that way." He growled his heart breaking as he watched Lina's face fall in horror. Vash had to release Marlon as Lina darted over and gave him a hug and burst into tears.

"I never would ask you to kill anyone!"

Vash smiled and put his arms around her.

"I know Lina. I know why you want me to go after Johnston. We'll catch him. Don't worry."

She smiled fiercely at him through her tears, then released him and addressed Marlon.

"I just wanted to settle things." She said softly and reached out and to Marlon's great surprise gave the gunsmith's arm a squeeze. "It came out wrong. I know he seems pathetic."

"Hey!" Vash protested, and she patted his chest.

"But you do, Ericks." She said fondly and turned back to Marlon. "I've tried defending him before and got it horribly wrong. I learned the hard way to help him do what he does best. Vash, take the money, please."

"No, Lina."

"Well I don't want it back."

"And I'm not taking it."

They eyed each other. Lina suddenly laughed.

"Oh Ericks I love you!"

Abruptly the room felt uncomfortably warm. Vash suddenly wanted to be anywhere but where he stood now.

There was a snort from behind them, as Livio could not contain himself any longer.

"I'll be out in the truck." He hastily retreated with the twins.

"And I'm missing what is sure to be the party of the year in the Saloon!" Vash exclaimed and darted out of the door after Livio. "Later!"


	20. Chapter 20

_**Chapter 20**_

Livio was waiting in the front yard laughing silently at him. Vash scowled at him. Livio cracked up harder. He leaned on the wall trying to get his breath back.

"Go entertain yourselves in the truck." Livio still grinned and laughed as he waved on the avidly watching twins. "Vash and I need to talk about something."

Vash was sure he knew what that was and swiftly strode down the road. Livio caught up to him after he had walked two blocks. He was still laughing.

"Your face could have put your red coat to shame!"

"I'm sure it was a trick of the light!" He grouched.

Vash stopped and took a deep breath of the cold air. He dug around in his coat pockets and came out with a striped tie. Livio glanced at it curiously.

"When do you want to leave?" Vash asked as he worked at the tight knot in the tie.

"You're tracking Johnston?"

"Yes. That little performance was Lina's way of telling me she doesn't want me to leave, but knows I must."

"We'll need a day to get supplies, and to find out when the next bus leaves, so a day's time."

"Right. Let's go and celebrate your near victory."

"I let her win."

"Sure."

"That's a very annoying expression on your face; sure you don't want me to rearrange it for you?"

"You could try."

Livio laughed and draped his arm around him.

"Lessgo get smashed, ss a long time since I done zat."

.

They entered the saloon and the party was in full swing. Raised glasses greeted Livio, but a cheer went up when Vash walked in.

"Near Hit Eriks!" Someone hollered from the other side of the room. "His drink's on me!"

Vash was beginning to enjoy himself, singing with his newly made friends who kept piling him with drinks. They regaled each other with their own near hit stories, and as the evening wore on, the stories became progressively more imaginative.

Livio wandered over swigging the last of a bottle of beer and grabbed the tail of Vash's tie and tugged it off his head.

"Wharz this?"

Vash tried to focus on it.

"Is ma drinking tie." He beamed. "Issa best thing. People buys you esstra drinks iv you wear it."

He watched as Livio tugged it down on his own head so hard that it fell down around his eyes. The men around Vash laughed so much they ordered another round for 'Eriks's buddy."

"Thiz fandastic." Livio raised the whiskey glass.

Vash laughed and raced Livio in downing a glass. They smacked down the glasses and gasped, then crowed their success to the others. More rounds came.

.

Vash wandered out of the saloon into the cool night air. Somewhere he had made the mistake of drinking something with silly paper umbrellas in it. Or was it several something's? Whatever they were, they were making his stomach churn dreadfully.

He leaned against the wall, after several attempts, as it kept dancing away from him.

"Good party?"

He looked around blearily and saw Zachary and Marlon standing in the street watching him.

"Yeesss." He beamed then blinked, trying to remember what he wanted to say. Oh yes. "Sorry 'bout leaving so quick. Lina okay?"

"Yes. She made us supper. Spent all evening convincing the twins that sneaking into the saloon to join their father was a bad idea."

Vash laughed.

"She used to do that herself, she should know what a lost cause that is."

"Who is she?" Zachery asked, curiously.

"Lina?" Vash put his hand on his chest and took a deep breath as his stomach did a flip. It didn't help. "She a friend. Helped me when I was in a tight spot, I helped her." He pushed himself away from the wall, perhaps moving about would help. Ah, there was another thing. He turned to Marlon. "Try tell her I don't want the money, she needs it for her son."

Marlon nodded.

"You're going off after this Johnston fellow?" The gunsmith clarified.

"Mm hmm." Vash tried to nod but the world danced oddly around in front of his eyes. He watched the effect.

"It's just that she'll need a home here, right?"

"Hey!" Zachary interrupted Marlon churlishly.

"Wha do you mean?" Vash tried putting his hand over his eyes. Everything went dark. It was an improvement.

"She's amazing!" Zachary exclaimed. "Did you see her yesterday? I'm surprised you haven't snatched her up!"

There was something in the young man's tone that got through to him. He dropped his hand and tried to focus on him.

"What? Me and Lina?" He tried to frown and it came out in a lopsided smile. Words worked better. "No. Really no, she's like, like a daughter to me. Only really not my daughter. See?"

Zachary smiled.

"You wouldn't mind if I..."

Vash felt his stomach gave a very decisive turn.

"Oooh, er..." He tried to find the wall again and threw up.

"That is disgusting." Marlon said in a sad voice. "You really should think of quitting."

The wall was becoming somewhat steadier now.

"Ugh." Vash wiped his mouth, trying to figure out if it was safe to move just yet.

"We'll talk to you when you're sober." Marlon said sympathetically.

Vash heard them walk off, Zachary protesting as Marlon dragged him away. He tried to concentrate, and replayed the conversation in his mind. He pushed himself away from the wall and found he could balance on his own legs. He put his hand to his head and staggered after the gunsmith and his assistant. Did he just ask about Lina? In that way?

He caught up to Zachary.

"You and Lina?" He asked and the man confirmed it with a nod. "But you're, ow!" Vash exclaimed as Zachary stomped on his foot.

"You need to tell her!" Vash insisted.

Zachary shrugged as Marlon looked across at them, curious.

There was something more. Vash tried to think, but his head was beginning to split the world into two images. He put both hands to his temples. "Ooh my head." He complained. Yes, that was what he wanted to say, it was important. "The child... is, is like... like the twins and me." What did they call him, demon, yes... no, monster, no what was the elusive word?

"She told me he was a plant." Zachary said.

"Right after the twins showed us their talents." Marlon said grimly, as if the incident still spooked him.

Vash blinked, then smiled, then nodded and put his arm companionably around Marlon and Zachary. Plant. That was the word.

The gunsmith disentangled himself and helped him balance.

"Really, Vash, you reek of alcohol." Marlon shook his head dolefully. "Not flattering. No lady wants that in her bed."

"Is the only time I seem to catch them," he smiled, "when I'm too drunk to do anything, they gets all disappointed and leave." He finished forlornly. He then brightened up as if a new thought occurred to him. "Meryl stayed." This amazed him. He must have said it aloud as Marlon was watching him with an expression of surprise. Zachary's mouth was hanging open. Vash laughed bashfully. "But sheess a good girl, we can trust her, and, and the big girl."

Marlon patted him on the back as Zachary shook his head incredulously.

"Go sleep it off, you old fool."

Vash watched the gunsmith and his assistant walk away. Why had he thought of Meryl now? He rubbed his head again. Then tried stretching. Ugh. His body was beginning to burn off the alcohol already. Not even the umbrella drinks helped. He watched them turn the corner and stood thinking over the conversation. Lina and Zachary? Who would have thought? Things would get all kind of interesting, for Zachary certainly. And what was that about being unflattering to the ladies? He breathed into his palm and tried to smell his own breath. Fegh! Disgusting. He coughed and rubbed his hand through his hair, he was missing his tie.

Oh. Livio had it. He stretched again as sobriety began its reclamation. Where was Livio? That tie would get him in trouble. He wandered back to the Saloon.

* * *

Livio was hanging on to an equally unstable Vash as they staggered back across the town to where they had parked the truck.

"Issa sunrise." Vash squinted.

Was it that late? Early? Livio pushed the tie up his forehead. The sun was there. Suns.

The next thing they knew they were sprawled on the ground. Somewhere around his head thunder happened. The adrenaline surge did what several black cups of coffee and a full nights sleep usually achieved. Vash seemed to have regained his sobriety even faster, as he was able to process the running away bit. Livio instinctively armed himself and searched for his attacker. Several thugs lined the buildings nearby. Some idiot had thrown a grenade at them. His head suddenly pounded with pain. Ugh. Couldn't they respect the hangover? They tried to open fire, but it seemed that Vash was as unhappy at the awakening as he was, as whole swathes of them lost their guns, or found themselves distracted by the immediacy of injury. He joined in; his legs finally embraced the concept of running.

"There he goes! The tattoo face! The sand steamer robber!"

Ah, so, that was what it was. Had someone put a bounty on his head? It was the first time he had heard of it. He took out the idiotic opportunists on the roofs above him. Had they not seen the surely more impressive bounty staggering along beside him?

It was mid morning when Livio felt his magazine in his left gun click empty. Crap. He had another twenty five bullets in the right if he were lucky. Somewhere along the line, the Terran's had arrived. Marlon had found them earlier, and had thrown ammunition and a poster ripped from a wall up to him where he had hidden on the roof, watching Vash's back as he ran through the streets trying to protect the residents as they fled to safer areas in the city. It showed a rather unflattering picture of himself with the bounty of fifty thousand on his head, issued by the Terrans. Fantastic. So Johnston was on his case. He was only surprised that he had not come after him sooner.

He then heard a familiar rumble of Lina's truck.

(Dad!)

Livio winced slightly. He had told Doug not to shout when using mind speech; he had no way to lessen the sound. His head rang like a bell.

"Get on!" Zachary shouted, from where he rode in the jury-rigged gunner's turret atop the truck where the search light had once been.

Doug was crouched behind him, watching the rear of the truck with his gun.

He leaped across and landed cat like on the roof. Zachary stomped twice on the roof and the truck roared off again.

"Where's Vash?" Zachary asked as Livio grabbed new magazines from Doug and clipped them in.

The question was answered when an explosion went off. Then another, then rapidly after it another.

The truck came to a halt at the edge of the rubble. In the centre of the town, in a radiating swathe of rubble Vash stood with his revolver drawn, pointing it directly at Johnston. Many of the town's residents and the gunmen from the competition were slowly surrounding them. They were being far too cautious about it. Livio raised his gun, taking the man in his sights.

(Don't.)

Ouch. Damn, he'd forgotten Vash could also do that. How had the man seen him? He was watching Johnston. The town's folk amazed him then, instead of running away and cowering in the face of superior firepower, they crossed the rubble and took positions around Vash, some almost protectively in front of him. He then saw Marlon step directly in front of Vash's revolver and spread his arms as if to protect his friend.

"This is our town, Terran!" Marlon said with a bleak expression on his face. "Why do you bring war?"

"War? Not so." Johnston exclaimed. "We were chasing a fugitive of justice."

There were angry mutterings after they heard his accent was their own, not Terran, though he wore their clothing.

"No, you were bombing our town." Marlon growled. "You were not after one man."

"Get out if you want to live!" Someone shouted from the crowd and a rock bounced off Johnston's head. He grabbed at his hat and jammed it harder on his head.

"We shall have a cease fire." Johnston said in an icy voice. "Till noon. If you don't hand over the robber Livio and Vash the Stampede, we'll resume our search."

He turned and walked away. Rocks bounced off him, but he ignored them. He climbed into a tank and the rocks continued to bounce off the tanks until they had retreated out of the town.

"Vash the Stampede is here?" A lively argument ensued and the crowd fled, some back to their homes to evacuate, the others divided into enthusiastic groups of bounty hunters. All ignored Marlon and Vash as they walked through them towards Lina's truck. Livio ducked into the truck where Lina and Jasmine were watching things from the cab. Marlon clambered up onto the roof beside Zachary and Vash leaped up into the cab and slammed the door behind him.

"We've got to draw off the Terran's." Vash addressed Livio, and hurried through to where his duffle bag lay on his bunk at the back.

"You should have shot Johnston." Lina called back as Zahcary thumped the roof. She reversed the truck and drove on.

"He knew who I was but did not call me out." Vash pulled his ruined red duster from his bag, ditched his brown coat, and pulled it on. "He really wants you for some reason." He shot a questioning glance at Livio. Livio nodded grimly. Vash arranged his hair up in his signature style.

"Let's go."


	21. Chapter 21

_**Chapter 21**_

They walked out of the town.

"Lina was right; you do need a new coat." Livio remarked.

Vash glanced at the scorched black mark that flared down from his shoulders at the back.

"This old coat saved your life!"

"Some stupid plant dragging me too fast across the room did that."

"Sorry!"

Livio could not believe he was apologising for that, did he not know a thank you when he heard it?

Vash gazed out at the row of tanks just beyond the town. There were squads of infantry near them.

"What's the plan?" Livio asked.

Vash did not reply. He put his glasses on and continued walking.

"Why does Johnston want you so badly?" Vash asked. "This is not about the sand steamer."

He turned when he heard Livio stop.

"Bad?"

Livio glowered at him.

"They captured Chronica." He clenched his fist as the ragged pain and horror gripped him in simply recalling that then went on wretchedly. "I remember parts of what happened." There were gaping gaps in his memory all too easily filled by the blood soaked clothes he had found himself in, and the hotel of dead Terrans. Chronica had done something to him that had brought him to his senses. He was not sure what. Hit him? He had had headaches for days afterwards. Only they had left alive. He had had to help her as she could barely walk. His jaw worked but he could not voice the conflict in his mind.

"Razlo?" Vash asked, gazing out at the Terran tanks.

Livio flinched. He'd forgotten Vash knew his secret, the other personality he carried. He put his hand instinctively to the dome where his left ear had been. They had wired up his body something strange. That other personality knew its old uses, though for now it merely served as a cybernetic ear.

Vash had such a sad expression on his face. No, it was not sadness; it was disappointment. Livio felt his temper flare.

"What's with that face?" He snapped. He did not need the pity that would follow.

"You didn't have to kill them."

Livio gaped incredulously at him. Was he trying to reason with Razlo, or him?

"Like hell. They deserved worse, it was a pity I lost it before I went inside, or I'd have maimed each one of them for life so that they would carry the pain and suffering till the end of their days." His throat was raw and his words came out with scratchy anguish.

Vash reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"The twins are your future. Do not lose sight of that."

Livio clawed his hands at the agony that twisted in his gut.

"Do you think I don't know what I am?" He demanded. "What I was?"

Vash released his shoulder and smiled. The damn fool was smiling, at him, as if something pleased him. What could that be? There was nothing to smile at.

"This new day is nearly half done. Why don't we spend the rest of it in pursuit of love and peace?"

How that was going to happen, Livio did not know, but Vash kept walking and he would follow him.

They made it half way across to the Terran's before the towns bounty hunters realized who they were. Trucks and tomas's came racing out the town.

"No!" Vash waved his hands at them in alarm as the Terran's maneuvered their tanks forward and began firing shells. The town's folk responded with bazookas and truck mounted rocket launchers.

"I'm here?" Vash raised a hand as the two ploughed into each other. They screamed insults about the others nationality, their dubious origins, and what their mothers had been doing at the time.

Livio grabbed the man who was gaping incredulously at the impromptu battle.

"Run! They'll notice us soon enough!"

"What?"

"Can you outrun a tank?"

"No!" Vash staggered backwards, still wide eyed with horror at the fight, as Livio pulled him.

"Then let's get a head start."

.

Livio sat with his back against Vash shivering. It was freezing and a wind had picked up, which froze him even further.

"Whose idea was it to run out into the desert?" He groaned.

"Yours." Vash reminded him without heat. Neither of them could maintain enough energy to quarrel.

"Which direction was that town?"

"Follow the foot prints."

"It's night."

"Wait till morning."

"I'll have frozen by then." Livio hated the cold; it made the skin and bone around his mechanical appendages ache.

"Think warm thoughts."

"Ow!"

Livio opened and closed his hand as pins and needles fizzed up it. He had forgotten the man had a prosthetic arm. The elbow jab did not work on him.

There was a whiff of something heavenly and a slight sloshing sound.

"Oh, I found something better than thoughts." Vash handed over the bottle of whiskey.

Now that was more like it.

.

They woke to a circle of gun muzzles. Livio peered up at the towns men who were silhouetted against the sunlight. An incandescent halo surrounded their heads. Ow, his eyes were drilling pure agony through his brain. He heard a sleepy noise of surprise from beside him as Vash half sat up.

"Get up." The leader of the posse ordered. It was Redge, Livio recalled sourly, he had spent the evening in the Saloon complaining to any who would listen about how Lina had cheated her way to victory. He tried to help Vash to his feet, but the other man seemed far steadier and alert than he.

"This is the second time you've bothered me while I have a hangover!" Livio grouched at Redge.

"That would be preferable to the sun blisters you would have if you stay out here." Redge countered. "Bring them."

He considered his options. He could fight what seemed like forty men, and their tomas's and trucks, or he could follow them to wherever they were taking them. The first left more burning and freezing desert as an option, the second the possibility of a cool jail cell. Wonderful. A dark cool cell. He'd bust out when his head wasn't killing him.

"We sent the Terrans packing last night." Redge explained as they passed by the wreckage of three tanks and in the distance four more. The town's folk were already dismantling them for the metal.

"Can't let them have our people."

Livio pricked up his ears.

"You're setting us free?" Vash asked with a smile of relief.

Redge barked a laugh.

"No. But better us from No Man's Land benefit from the bounty than Terrans, bloody parasites."

There was no jail in Warren's City, but a back room in Redge's house had a stout door and bars over the windows, which seemed to serve the same purpose. It was cool, shady and there was even a bench against the wall. Amazing. Livio tipped himself out onto it and gave a sigh of contentment. Vash sat against the wall and hung his head. There were now quite a few people gathered in the next room staring in at them through the still open door.

"Who would have thought 'Near Hit Eriks' was Vash the Stampede."

"Is he really a plant?"

"He looks hung over, not dangerous."

"When will the Feds get here?"

"Next two hours."

"Good that man is too dangerous. Just look what happened to the town."

Livio squinted at Vash, but the man seemed to be contemplating the inside of his eyelids.

"Alright, alright! Enough gawking. Get out of my house!" Redge exclaimed.

Ah, the peace that followed that. Two hours was it, Livio mused. He would sleep for an hour and a half then.

He woke to a thunderous explosion and rolled instinctively under the bench as the rocks and masonry rained down around him. It had only been half an hour, what had happened? He gaped as Jasmine marched through the rubble and fired at Redge. There was a solid thunk and an 'oof!' as the man went down. Livio gaped at the enormous gun she carried. Where had she found a stun gun? She kicked him in the shoulder.

"Move it!"

He realized he was gaping at her and scrambled out. Vash was lying sprawled against the wall, unconscious. He hauled the man up over his shoulder as Jasmine darted through the still shifting rubble to a large Terran Tank just outside. Doug raised the turret door as they leaped up. Livio had to manhandle Vash inside then dropped down himself. Jasmine twisted it closed as Doug turned the tank and drove it full speed down the street without any concern for people in the way. Jasmine loaded a shell as Livio draped Vash into one of the horribly tiny chairs, the man overflowed gangly legs and arms.

"Firing!" Jasmine called.

The shell roared along the street, clearing it of people. It exploded half an ile out in the desert, making the towns folk reclaiming metal flee.

Livio sat back and watched in dazed awe.

"Like it Dad?"

He grinned at Doug, he had no words for how proud and astonished he was. Jasmine continued to watch the town as it faded into the distance.

Vash groaned and awkwardly tried to find a position that did not have his knees around his ears.

"Wha happened?"

"My amazing children stole a tank, rescued us and we're on the run." Livio exclaimed.

Vash blinked at them.

"Where's Lina?"

"I think by now she's chasing the remaining Terrans blockaded in the east of town." Doug informed them.

"She says to go on without her." Jasmine said soberly. "She says Johnston is important and that she can find work in this town. Vash, I saw her put that money in your bag, so I sneaked it out and shoved it in Mick's diaper bag. Was that okay?"

He nodded.

"Marlon said to give this to you." Jasmine left the periscope and from their bags pulled a gun shape wrapped in an oil cloth. "He says it's as good as new, no charge as usual."

Vash smiled and slumped back.

"And dad, Zachary tuned these." She pulled out two bundles and with a grunt lifted a box of ammunition with a cross stamped on the top. Livio felt the hair on the back of his neck lift. He had not been wrong. He hastily cleared his expression when he noticed Jasmine eyeing him curiously.

"Thanks." He grinned. "Drive east, we need to catch a steamer at Inepril City."

"Where are we headed?" Doug asked.

"December." Livio said with a grim smile.

* * *

Except for the silence, there had been no warning before they entered the City. Even driving a tank, they had had to stop when they reached the mound of debris in the middle of the road. Vash kicked at the rubble that covered the street. Several buildings were knocked down, but that was common enough in abandoned towns where the local hooligans from surrounding towns experimented with dynamite, but this was Inepril City, it should not be abandoned. He could see the power plant in the distance, he would find out what had happened.

He leaped up onto the pile of rubble to peer further down the road and felt his blood run cold. He clapped his hand over his mouth so as not to cry out. The kids must not see this. The rest of the main street was a scene of carnage. Blood splattered on walls, half the buildings demolished. A few dead bodies, only a day or so gone by the look of them, lay half buried under rocks. He jumped down. Livio was eyeing the rubble as if trying to find the most suitable route for the tank through it. Vash pointed back down the road.

"Take the kids around the outskirts across to the power plant housing. I need to look around."


	22. Chapter 22

_**Chapter 22**_

Inepril City

Doug darted out and ran up to the top of the rubble before Livio could grab him. He shot a cheeky grin at his father, but his face crumpled into horror as he turned. The street was littered with the gruesome remains of a heavy raid. No life or building had been spared in this quarter of Inepril City.

"Dad." He said in a strained voice.

"It was your decision boy." Livio said evenly and then walked up to join him. "Mmmh."

Doug staggered down the rubble and over to the ground by a partially standing wall to throw up.

"Sure you'll be okay, Vash?" Livio asked.

Vash brushed fingers across his chin seriously, watching Doug shudder.

"I think I can take on a street full of dead guys."

Despite himself Doug laughed.

* * *

Vash walked through the town, relieved he had sent Livio by another route to the plant on the far side of the city. He felt sick to the stomach.

"Who?" He spoke aloud now, appalled. "Who did this?"

A gang conflict? What gang would take out an entire town? They thrived on towns, and made money off people, no not a gang. A rival one? The people had been shot; there were bullet wounds in the copses and shells all over the ground. He picked up one and turned it so the light allowed him to read the embossed words there. To his astonishment, he did not recognise the code of letters and numbers on the head stamp. They were the same .45 long colt design as he used but he had never come across these before. There was not much new on this world, and what was came from the Terrans. Or someone wanting those who investigated to think that it was Terrans. He pocketed several shells and went on grimly.

Johnston already had much to answer for, but it did not make sense, why did they destroy this town? He tried to think the times he had met the Terrans, they had killed a plant in cold blood, they had helped slavers, they had almost left a town to die as they went after the power plant... He raised his head in horror as he stared at the two power plant bulbs on what remained of the curved ship hull.

"No. Oh no!" He breathed. He had just sent Livio and the twins there! And he'd been dawdling in the street looking for clues. He took off across town at a sprint.

* * *

Meryl climbed off the bus at Warrens City with Milly trailing after her. She stared at the rubble and the construction work going on around the town square. Where the major buildings around the square had been was an untidy collection of tin shacks or tents. Rubble lay in heaps around cleared roads.

"Oh Meryl." Milly whispered. "They said it was bad. Oh, Mister Vash, what have you done?"

"They said it was the Terran's shelling the town, not Vash." She murmured to comfort her partner; she felt no comfort in her own words. Facts could be as they were, but she knew too well what he was capable of. She had seen the destruction of Jeneora Rock with her own eyes. She held her breath as she felt the suffocating fear threatening to engulf her. Not here! She clenched her fists furiously and deliberately tried to push her mind away from the panic. Why had it come over her now? She was not in any life-threatening situation.

"Meryl? Are you ill?" Milly asked. "You look pale."

She took a deep breath and deliberately released her tension. She could go to pieces in private. She shoved the memories away to deal with later.

"We need to visit the gunsmith." She said. "Abe's letter said that several of the town's informants had seen Vash talking to his girlfriend. She's our lead."

.

People directed them to a house on the edge of town. There was a shooting range in the back yard, but it was quiet. Meryl knocked on the door. She smiled up at the man who opened it. He seemed to her eyes to be younger than when she had last seen him, his face not so lined. He wore a green shirt and his hair was thick and dark. He regarded her with a slight frown on his face as he stared down at her.

"Ah!" He exclaimed before she could introduce herself. "You're the derringer girl!"

"Excuse me?" She said in surprise. "Have we met?" She was astonished he remembered, they had, once on a dark night when he and Vash were too drunk to walk straight. Oh and there had been the incident where she and Milly had helped rob the bank. That memory she squirreled away back into her hall of shame.

"Oh yes! You were following Vash around all those years ago. Do you still carry your derringers?" He smiled at her surprise. "I'm a gunsmith, I notice when people find interesting ways to carry guns."

"Ah, yes." She said faintly. Since leaving the NLBC she'd been wearing her cape almost constantly.

"A defensive weapon, yes? Probably had to use it to encourage the gentlemen to keep their hands off?" He smiled.

She nodded, feeling her face shut down.

"Oh." He put his hand over his mouth. "Sorry, that was tactless of me. I forget how much danger this world offers young ladies, especially if you're in his company."

"Are you Mister Frank Marlon?"

"That would be me."

She introduced herself and Milly.

"We're here looking for information on Vash. We're trying to find him. We were told that your girlfriend might know something, he was seen talking to her."

Marlon barked a laugh.

"She's not my girlfriend. I have a wife and grown son, thank you."

"Oh. Sorry, we were told that the gunsmith's girlfriend had been seen with him." Meryl apologised awkwardly.

"Yes, but that gunsmith is not me. She is just a good friend. I'd like to see someone who helped Vash so much find him. Lina has told me quite a bit about you and Milly."

"She has?" Meryl tried to remember if she knew anyone called Lina. A memory of an old report came to her then, something about Kasted City. It had been months ago, and it had been old by the time it had reached them. She tried to recall the details.

Marlon laughed.

"Why not head over and see her? She'd be delighted to meet you in person. She collects stories about Vash, and would like to hear what you have to say."

He gazed over Meryl's head at Milly.

"Do you still carry that enormous stun gun?"

Milly twitched aside her cloak.

"Good. I don't mind sending spunky girls after him, good luck."

.

They went to the Saloon. A waitress sweeping the floor and an older woman standing behind the bar, listening to an old man who was toothlessly trying to charm a top up of beer to the one glass she had given him.

Meryl went up to the waitress.

"Excuse me, we're looking for Lina."

"Who is looking for Lina?" The waitress asked.

"Meryl Stryfe and Milly Thompson. Marlon sent us."

The waitress's eyes went wide. She swept her pile of dirt under the nearest table.

"Sandra!" She called. "Urgent business. I'll do the rest of the chores later."

"Sure." The older woman said, eyeing Meryl and Milly.

"You're Lina."

The girl raised her eyebrow at her. She was just shorter than Milly was, and wore her brown hair pinned around her head. She had a slender build and a determined expression in her eye.

"To you, yes. Marlon did the right thing sending you to me. Come on, we can talk upstairs."

Her room was on the end of the passage. There was a single bed against the wall and a child's crib beside it. There were toys scattered on a blanket in one corner and a desk with several crates stacked on top of it containing wads of pages. Meryl noticed the labels with interest: Terran Plants; Plant biology; Plant Medical; Ericks; Knives; Mick; To Research.

"You're interested in plants?" Meryl smiled and Milly fished out the business card before she could.

"We are as well."

Lina took the card and her face shut down. She crumpled it in her hand and shoved it in her pocket.

"Get out."

Meryl stared at her in shock.

Lina walked to the door and waved them out, Milly hurried out apologetically. Meryl did not move.

"Lina, what's wrong?"

"I know what you do! I've seen you referenced in all those reports. Fifth Moon Investigations. You sell out the plants on this world to the media and the damned Terrans. You're worse than dirt! Get out before I throw you out."

Meryl groaned. This was when she needed Abe around. Plants often responded like this to her presence. Abe could talk them around to the idea of the double deal, but Meryl had always failed. She tried very hard to remember what he said on such occasions, or was it the fact that he was a plant himself? Was Lina a plant? Her accent was distinctly native, no her hair colour was wrong.

"Lina, can I explain something, please?" Meryl begged.

Lina glared at her.

"What is there to explain? I've seen the show you made. Now I know your true agenda. There is nothing to discuss between us. Get out."

Meryl felt herself trembling inside, she was furious at the girls rudeness and shocked that she hated her so much. She really needed to talk to this girl! What would Vash do in a situation like this? If the girl knew Vash, perhaps there was a way to get through to her. Well, Vash would probably laugh and say something disarming and silly. Her mind hit a roaring blank. Or he'd beg. She glared at him in her minds eye. Oh the things she had to do for that man!

She tried to remember exactly how he'd done it to Johnston in the cell. On both knees, hands down and face almost touching the ground. She swallowed her pride she needed the information. Trembling she mimicked the action.

"Please, I am asking you to hear me out. I have a debt owing to Vash and you're my only lead in finding him. Please help me."

"Meryl." Milly whispered in concern.

Lina stood for a long while staring at her then clicked her tongue.

"Okay, but you've got to answer all my questions and if I don't want to say anything, I won't. Understood?"

Meryl looked up from where she knelt on the ground.

"Yes." She managed as meekly as she could.

Lina sat on her bed and offered Milly the desk chair and seemed to think the floor was the best place for Meryl. Her eyes went wide when Milly placed the stun gun against the wall.

"Milly Thompson." Lina said softly. "You're the reason Jasmine got herself one of those."

Milly smiled broadly.

"She wanted a gun to terrify not kill." Milly said happily.

"It certainly does that." Lina exclaimed. "I saw what it did to the dummy she practiced on."

Meryl kept quiet and let Milly and Lina talk. They discussed what they knew of the twins, and of past encounters with Vash. Meryl folded her arms around herself. She felt faintly nauseous. Mimicking Vash had been a ploy, but the uncertainty and desperation she had felt in the seconds she had spent on the ground made her wonder at his humility. He never stood up for himself, but somehow radiated strength. She pondered several memories of him; they were sad and somehow beautiful.

"Meryl?"

She blinked. Milly and Lina were watching her in silence.

"You had an odd smile on your face."

She felt her cheeks flame crimson.

"Ah! Day dreaming. What were you saying?"

"Lina asked what you wanted from her."

Meryl shook her head to clear her thoughts.

"To be honest, what you can tell us about where he has gone. I assume he is still travelling with the twins. He'd not give them up since their mother died."

"Yes." Lina said. "When he left here, he was travelling with them and the twin's father, a man called Livio."

Meryl felt the whole world suddenly float around her. The twins were not Vash's kids? She wanted to dance around the room yelling in delight. She hadn't noticed how much that had bothered her until now. Lina's words then caught up with her.

"Livio? Tall man, broad shoulders, has a lightning tattoo across his left eye and an odd domed hearing aid on his left ear? Carries submachine guns with crosses on them?"

"Yes." Lina said in surprise. "You know him?"

"Of course I do! He's one of the few people who can keep up with Vash while fighting. But why is Livio travelling with Vash? What devastation happened to bring Livio out?"

"Um, Meryl." Milly murmured. "His wife got killed and he has to look after his children."

Meryl wished the floor would open up and swallow her then and there.

"Oh, yes." She said lamely.

"It's Johnston." Lina said bitterly.

"Ooh that horrible man!" Milly exclaimed and clenched her fists.

Lina smiled then, sensing a kindred spirit. Meryl was aghast.

"Johnston is chasing Vash?" She remembered Vash's reaction to the man.

"But now Vash and Livio are hunting Johnston. I think they meant to head east from here. They certainly left town going east."

"Were they on foot?"

Lina laughed.

"No. The twins stole a Terran tank, put a shell through the wall of the house the towns people locked them in and sprung Livio and Vash. Then they sped off into the desert. They found the tank eighty iles west of here and half buried in sand. The sand storm had obliterated any tracks, so where on from there is conjecture."

Lina folded her hands over her knees.

"There, now that you have what you want, answer me this, Meryl Stryfe. If you owe such a big debt to Vash, why are you destroying his life and the lives of other plants?"

Meryl thought hard, how did Abe put this? She could not remember, so settled for honesty. She told Lina how Abe had challenged her and how that had changed the course of the corporation. Lina was staring at her wide eyed when she finished.

"Wow. It is like a witness protection program, except secret and devious. Wow." Lina's face broke into a smile as tears fell from her eyes. "I knew you couldn't be a horrible person having spent so much time around him! Oh wow." She wiped at her face. "Do you think you would be able to send me information?"

"Now we get to the hard part." Meryl said with a shrug. "We help plants, and offer a misinformation service. But if that gets out, all our efforts are in vain. I only told you this, because I made an intuitive guess. We had reports of Vash being in Kasted City, and the details were sketchy, but they mention your kidnapping and how you were carried into town by him. The hospital refused to comment. I see the crib. I see the information and how protective you are. Your child is ..."

Lina gave a nod and a secretive smile.

"Wait here, I'll get Anna to bring him in. Be careful what we say in his presence, as he might repeat what we say in some odd place."

Anna was a small old woman with her grey hair in a bun. She helped a small boy of two years to walk into the room. He looked curiously at them. There was no mistaking he was a plant, the light hair and eyes marked him immediately.

Lina crouched on the floor and the child toddled over to her and flopped in her lap. She gathered him in her arms and turned him to face them.

"Mick, this is Meryl and Milly."

He looked around the room, his pale eyes considering each of them in turn.

"Where is Vash?"

Lina laughed.

"No. Only Meryl and Milly are here."

"But the story you told had Meryl and Vash and Milly."

"Yes, they are his friends." Lina laughed and kissed him on the top of his head. "I've got to go back to work. Go with Anna and be good."

He hugged her and very reluctantly went with the old woman, toddling out.

Meryl stared as the door shut behind her.

"How old is he?" Milly asked Lina curiously.

"Three months."

Meryl whipped her head around, shocked.

"It's normal for plants." Lina smiled. "Don't worry. I have that much information, the twin's mother gave it all to Vash and he let me copy what I needed to know."

Meryl suddenly felt very out of her depth.

"We'll send on what information you want to know." She said faintly. "You can write to Abe Jefferson directly, he'd be delighted to hear about this."

* * *

Vash ran through the streets toward the power plant, listening now for the singing before he approached, but there was no song. What had happened? They did not look dead. His heart hammering against his chest with anxiety, he put on an extra burst of speed. He turned into the street that would take him directly to the power plant building then skidded through the dust as he tried to reverse his direction mid stride. He dove through an open window into the nearest house as he encountered a row of infantry at the far end of the street.

"What was that?"

"Another local?"

Vash rolled then picked himself off the floor and hurried through the abandoned house. It had been looted, though the heavy furniture remained. The infantry were Terrans. Where were the town's folk? What had happened to the plants? He peered out of the window on the far side to find infantry men stalking up the side of the house.

"Hello!" He gingerly waved as they swung their rifles at him. He darted back into the house as he heard people coming in at the door. Trapped? No, he could feel a movement of air. He fled upwards , once on the roof and took a quick glance around him.

There were six Terran tanks outside the power plant and three freight haulage trucks and hundreds of infantry. This was not the same group Johnston had been with, unless he had joined forces with another group. He could not believe his bad luck. Where was Livio? He hoped he had the sense to stay away.

"He's on the roof!"

A shot cracked through the air. He checked his escape route, down the stairs or the next roof along. It was a long jump, but no time to check the span. He sprinted and leaped, and misjudged the distance; he just landed on the roof and had to take a staggering run to balance himself, then stumbled out a second flailing leap onto the next house, which was only a single story. He landed awkwardly and realised they were keeping up with him on the road. They moved like the feds did, to orders. Why did people train for this sort of thing? It did not allow innovation. He grinned; on second thoughts, he liked that.

He took a flying leap off the house, felling a group of them in the main street then darted through the streets. He tried to hear the plants again, but they were silent. Bullets preceded the infantry as they chased him. He leaped out of the way and sprinted away again. They sure were persistent! Did they not have a perimeter to guard?

* * *

Meryl sat in the room they had rented only doors along from Lina's above the Saloon. Milly had gone out to take photos of the town. Meryl had sat down to write a report for Abe. She would show it to Lina before sending it on, but now that she stared at the page poking out of the typewriter, she did not know how to start it. She wound the page out, straightened it and wound it in again. She stared at it some more. She went to sit by the window instead.

Watching the pedestrian traffic in the road was a way to calm her mind. Usually when she felt ill at ease, she thought about the good times she had spent with him. Only now, he was the cause of the discomfort and she found she had no relief. She leaned forward and rested her elbows on the windowsill. The warm air blew in, lifting her hair. Damn. How had she let the man get to her so much? He terrified her with his power and drew her in with his kindness. Agh! He was so full of contradictions. She recalled starkly what he had learned when she had thought he had hit rock bottom; he had such determination that it overrode his regrets. She felt her heart twist in her as the memories she had been trying to repress marched across her mind. Travelling with him, she had only glimpsed a faint shade of the torment he carried, but that illusion that while he felt sorrow, he was basically happy had been utterly shattered that day. She tried to draw breaths as that memory that sometimes had her waking from sleep in disorientated panic invaded her mind. July. She had seen the destruction of Jeneora Rock for herself, and had had time to process the terrifying power of it all. But Lost July was something far, far worse. Simply, she had his memory of it, as he had experienced it, all his loss and pain without the faculties of his strength and determination to deal with it. And it was slowly destroying her. She lay with her head on the windowsill, unseeing as tears fell unregarded from her eyes.

* * *

Vash sneaked back as the late afternoon light cast his shadow backward. It meant he was staring directly into the suns while trying to see what was going on. He had approached the plant from three different streets only to have infantry pepper his coat tails with holes. They had extended their perimeter and were sending out scouting parties. He knew now he really disliked organised groups of soldiers. This lot were particularly annoying. They didn't get bored and wonder off to the saloon, they didn't get distracted and fight with each other over who took his bounty and worst of all, they didn't run after him when they saw him. They sent out scouting parties, leaving the main group guarding the power plant, which was where he needed to be.

He had searched through the surrounding houses and had found no guns or ammunition or even explosives. Nor had he found any fuel or flammable substances with which to make a Molotov cocktail. So, from what he saw the people had cleared out here, taking their emergency things and any items of weapon manufacture with them. That was a small comfort at least. The Terrans had not killed everyone. Where were the people? He gazed out around at the desert and saw a mesa a few iles to the north. It would be a likely place; it was certainly the only defensible place in the surrounding area.

He gazed back at the power plant. The fact the two plants were so quiet bothered him immensely. The last time the Terrans had done this he had managed to get into the building. They had been building some sort of fusion bomb, by the energy they had taken. Were the Terran's planning to bomb entire cities? He knew enough of earth's history to know just how awful those old bombs had been. No, they had the use of their destroyers. What would they need such power for when regular plant output provided more than adequate electricity? He felt his body go leaden with horror. It was not a bomb. No, it was far, far worse. They were charging that evil device which drained plants of their energy. He had to get in there!

* * *

Meryl and Milly sat in the saloon watching Lina and three other girls serve the drinks and keep their patrons happy. As the evening progressed, Meryl finally felt she could relax, the wine she was sipping certainly helped. Milly had turned her chair so she could chat to a group of gentlemen who had just by chance crowded around the table beside them. They offered Milly drinks, and occasionally remembered their manners and offered Meryl drinks as well. At least Milly was having fun. She was not in the mood to talk. Her thoughts were boiling in her mind, although with the relaxing qualities of the alcohol, the thoughts were slower and less furious, but no less distressing.

Lina slipped into the chair beside her.

"I've seen that expression often enough, something is eating you." She said, placing her tray on the table and slowly putting glasses onto it.

Meryl clenched her fists.

"Ah." Lina observed.

Her eyes flickered to where Milly was laughing surrounded by smiling young men. Meryl suddenly felt isolated, as if Lina understood her reluctance to join the men.

"What's wrong? Want to talk about it?"

Meryl gazed at Lina. Yes, Lina might understand, she launched into the explanation.

"You know, his heart is so beautiful it's hard to hate him. Half of me does, but it's because of that same beauty. I love it and loath it, because I always feel such awe and inadequacy when faced with it. Hah! Stupid man!" She ran her hand through her hair; it was getting long, she would have to cut it soon. "He just sets my teeth on edge."

Lina laughed.

"You've got it worse than me, Meryl." She said. "I've read your Bernadelli reports..."

"Those aren't public!" She paused. "And who said we were talking about Vash anyway?"

Lina laughed and gave her a knowing stare.

"My friends aren't exactly the law abiding type. They get the information if you want it. I read your reports and since I watched that show of yours, it is rather clear. I have only ever related to Vash as if he was my father, and that is the only role he has ever played. You were older, so you caught the other angle, a lover."

"I do not love that man!"

There was silence as all the men and Milly turned to stare at her. Meryl felt a deep blush creep up her cheeks and tried to sip her wine delicately.

Lina made placating motions.

"She does love him, even if she doesn't admit it." Lina said to Milly.

Milly smiled then went back to her conversation with the men. With her attention on them again, they ignored Meryl.

"I know my own mind! Don't talk like that, I am right here!" She hissed at Lina.

"You're also in denial." Lina twirled a glass on the tray. "But the odd thing is you know how he likes the tall pretty ladies?"

"Yes." Meryl said darkly.

"Why is it that he told Mister Marlon, that you were the only woman he ever trusted enough to fall asleep next to?"

"What?" Meryl spilled her wine and Lina caught the glass before it went over completely. She mopped it up as Meryl fought for control of her temper.

"That no good, sneaking, son of a..." Meryl breathed. She was so certain he would never say anything that she had tucked it away in her mind and had forgotten all about it. She noticed Lina eyeing her reaction with a knowing smile, as if this was enough evidence to support her theory. Meryl leaned closer to defend herself, that night was certainly no proof!

"We got sloshed on Whiskey that night and it knocked us out. Nothing happened. In fact neither of us knew we were sleeping next to each other until we woke in the morning. I've even got the seven seconds Milly filmed of him giving me a horrified stare when he discovered me there." She cringed.

Lina laughed softly.

"Don't trust him when he acts drunk. He can't hold it, and gets mellow, but he can function like a fully sober human, even if that is twenty percent output for a plant. He let you sleep next to him."

What? But how long had she known him? She'd always thought him the worst drunk, no. There was something in what Lina said, but she had usually been too busy contemplating her own pained head to notice that it was not quite the same for others. Meryl wrapped her arms around herself. First Doug, then Abe and now Lina! What were these people looking for? Did they think Vash needed a lover? Was that it? She was a rather convenient person, as the NLBC must have known, prior knowledge of the subject, prior friendship. But the NLBC, as awful as they were had only money and business interests in their sights. This was far more devious. They had his heart in their sights. Hah! She refused to be tricked into that role by their sympathies and desires. No one would tell her how to live any longer. She would simply stay away from him. Her heart gave an odd skip of anguish and she clenched her fist and bit at her knuckles to prevent herself crying out.

"Meryl." Lina's voice became more serious. "I think you will see him again. When you do, ask him to come past this town in two years time. Mick will be in his teens then, and I think will need a little input from someone who can understand him."

Yes, this conversation needed a definite rerouting.

"So." Meryl picked up her glass and sipped what wine remained. "You and Marlon?" She was sure Marlon had been lying to protect her.

Lina pulled a very odd face.

"Eew. He's like fifty and he has a wife and kid."

"But they said you were dating the gunsmith."

Lina blushed and glared at her.

"That is none of your business."

* * *

The suns had set by the time Vash managed to avoid the patrols and sneak across to the building closest to the power plant. He took a deep breath. Under the floodlights, the waiting men had changed shifts. He was simply going to charge them. He was about to leap when he saw Ezrah with his head bandaged, and blood seeping down his face, walk across the yard with the twins in chains after him. He lost it. He leaped; landing on the truck below him, then flew at Ezrah. The plant half turned and raised his blaster. Vash got off three shots, dashing the blaster from his hand, but not before the force the blaster fired slammed into him. He fell to the ground and twisted onto his feet, trying to get his breath. The twins had enough sense to run away. He gaped at them in chagrin, not into the power plant! What were they thinking? It was a trap! So much for his rescue, he coughed, wiped away the bitter metallic taste of blood and flew at Ezrah. The plant dodged him and instead of engaging him, Vash left him behind and went after the twins.

He was half way up the passage inside when bullets started digging up the floor behind him. He darted down a side passage and began his hunt. He dodged the Terrans as he could. He hid in nooks and crannies they never knew were there. He had that advantage over them. He had been in this building before. But it had been a few years ago, and there were some changes to the design. He was surprised when the broad passage he thought would take him to the output room, took him to the engineers station instead.

He skidded to as a crowd of Terrans poured into the passage ahead of him. He froze as he felt a gun barrel to his back. He raised his hands.

"Have you seen them?"

He glanced back at the uniformed Terran with the blaster behind him. Under the cap, and with a bandage covering his very distinctive tattoo, was Livio.

"I helped them break free of Ezrah. They're in this building somewhere." He muttered back, then turned to Livio, crying aloud. "Please don't shoot me, I'm begging you!"

"I'll shoot your mouth in if you keep up that whiney racket." Livio cuffed him across the face and grabbed him by the scruff of his coat and dragged him along the passage.

"That hurt!" Vash grumbled, and drew his hand away from his bloody nose.

"Get ready to run!" Livio muttered as they passed a cross passage.

Vash staggered as Livio threw him down one passage and sprinted along the other. The Terrans behind them caught on a few seconds too late.

Vash reached the stairs as the Terrans tore around the corner. He staggered as he felt the impact of two blaster shots to his back, then the thunderous crack of gun fire. He felt a sharp pain to his leg. As he fell, he twisted and shot the rifle out of the man's hand. He tumbled down two flights of stairs and landed upside down against the railing on the second landing. He coughed as he tasted more blood in his mouth. Those blasters were worse than guns, the damage they did inside without anything to show for it on the outside. His whole back was beginning to cramp with pain. He checked his leg, the bullet had only grazed his thigh. He heard the stomping of men running in the stair well above him. He had no time to patch it now. He scrambled to his feet and darted down the remainder of the flight down to ground level, as he ran he ejected the spent shells and slotted new bullets into his revolver.

He staggered to a halt as he found himself in a large chamber. Above him on the curved remains of the space ship hull were the two power orbs. There was a frantic amount of activity around the far end, and a shout went up as he entered and the people flooded out.

They were running from him? That was an improvement. The doors rumbled closed and he heard a very solid thud of the automatic latch locking. No. No that was not a good thing at all! That was the dispatch room. They had those awful devices in there. He sprinted across the room, hearing the song of the plants in his mind as he did so. They were dazed and frightened, but he felt a flood of relief. They were still alive.

"There he goes!"

The Terrans, who had chased him down the stairs, were spreading out in the room. He turned back; sending off six rounds as if they were one. The best blaster marksmen in the group dropped their weapons and collapsed on the floor, clutching their shoulders in agony. He reloaded and fired again as the remaining Terran's sprinted for cover. He then turned and ran for the door, reloading as he did so. He tried to override the controls of the door and dodge blaster fire at the same time. He ended up awkwardly jammed beside the desk, darting his hand up to the keypad on the lock. He had to snatch it down every few seconds as the Terrans were firing blaster shots at it. Two more iterations to try, and he'd have the door. He began to key in the code and there was a thunderous sound as his hand slammed against the keypad. He snatched his prosthetic hand back to himself, the feedback on this model was odd, it was a dull ache, not the raw pain he felt with his regular one. The fingers oddly splayed and his thumb was twitching spasmodically. They had shot the keypad through his hand, destroying both the hand and the keypad. The electrics arced for a few seconds. He heard the roar of trucks in the room beyond. Then he heard a terrified scream. No! It was Jasmine. Shouts followed and another scream.

He darted out and tried the door, but it was stuck fast. He heard a shot go off and turned furiously on the Terrans. His automatic defences as a plant scythed out a feather and stopped the bullet before it hit his face. He felt the world go oddly strange and the power around him shudder. He hastily shut the flow from the gate and gasped as he regained his calm.

He glared at the Terrans in fury.

"Aw crud, he's a plant!" The Terran infantry backed way as he advanced slowly, trying to desperately recall the layout of the building. Which was the quickest way if not through those doors?

"Get out of here!" The Terrans' nerve broke.

"Stand firm!" A voice bellowed. "Load angel shot."

Vash did not wait around to discover what that was; he had spotted a small door to his right, ah yes, the engineer's quarters and kitchens.

He sprinted into the kitchen to find several engineers busy untangling themselves from the wire they had been bound in. They gaped at him as he sprinted through the room and ran across to the window. He shot it out and kicked out the glass shards before jumping through. There was a strange thunderous crack where he had been a second ago, and the wall collapsed behind him. He did not have time to work out what had happened, as the Terrans were busy driving their trucks out of the depot. He searched around, trying to see where they could have put the coffins, or the twins, but there were too many trucks. Some were already an ile out into the desert.

"Vash the Stampede!"

He spun around and looked up to see Ezrah standing atop a truck with one of his soldiers slumped in his grip. No, it was Livio. Livio had tried to take on Ezrah alone?

"You'd better follow us!" Ezrah called as the truck thundered away out of earshot.

(He's still alive! We'll dump him in the desert for you to find!)

Vash raised his gun and fired. Ezrah gave a howl of pain and fell back, dropping Livio so the man's head bounced on the roof of the truck. Ezrah's body guards opened fire and Vash returned fire. But these were better trained than the marksmen who had been after him earlier. He shot two in the shoulders, but had to dodge a barrage of automatic fire. He could not afford to use his power but he could dodge. He felt the bullets tear at his coat and then bite into him. He staggered and fell against the door. The key pad. He could get inside. He slammed the number home rapidly and to his relief it opened. He staggered inside, the door taking the worst of the gunfire. He staggered over to the elevator and slumped against the wall and pulled the leaver. It rose to the upper gantry beside the power plant.

He stumbled out and collapsed on the metal floor. He opened his eyes. He was cold. The floor was so cold it drew all heat out of him. He felt almost frozen and he was not yet shivering. The light in the plant orb seemed warmer. He forced himself to his feet. He could hear the song. He dragged his legs as he lurched across to the orb and slumped against it. He was not sure if all the pain was just in his head, or if everything did hurt that much.

When he opened his eyes again, he heard more song. He watched the fight in his mind, how he fired off his gun. No, this was not how he remembered it. He was seeing another's images. He tried to find the speaker as he heard his name.

(Red brother, you came.)

(Too late.) He gazed up at the beautiful form of the plant next to him. He could sense her song and her life and the awe she shyly felt for him. Her sister plant was singing her thanks. He felt wretched; he did not deserve their praise after how poorly he had done. He had lost his friends. He pressed his face to the glass, and the plant inside touched the inside of the glass where he was.

(We tried not to do their bidding, but it hurt so much.)

His tears ran down the side of the orb.

(I know.) They had almost turned on themselves, but like when a human tried to hold their breath for too long and merely fainted, and their natural self preservation took over and they had responded to the flow of the energy they were fed. (I tried to get to you. I'm sorry.)

(We saw. It helped.)

He could no longer hold up his hand, and let it fall not seeing the blood stained smear he left on the glass. The plant inside traced it worriedly with her fingers. His body was beginning to tremble as the adrenaline wore off. He felt pain beginning to writhe through him and the shock lessened. He collapsed onto his side. Above him the plants sang in his mind. It distracted him a little from the pain and the strange delirium that flooded across his mind.


	23. Chapter 23

_**Chapter 23**_

"There's another one here!" A man dressed in overalls and a hard hat called down as he stepped out of the elevator. "Who do those bloody Terran's think they are, bombing a town and shooting up our plant engineers!"

He leaned over Vash's fallen form, which was slumped in a pool of his own blood. He was joined by several other towns folk as the lift clunked up.

"He doesn't look like a plant engineer."

"It's him." Someone said in awe.

"Is he dead?" Another man asked gaping in horror at the amount of blood.

"You know him, Sim?"

"Ya stupid, he's Vash the Stampede!"

"He looks dead."

"No, I don't think he is." Another engineer said sounding a little freaked out. "He's doing some weird plant thing."

Where his body touched the glass orb of the plant it was covered in strange cracks and the plant inside had clustered her wings and hands along the same spot on the other side of the orb.

The men shifted uncomfortably.

"Um. I think she's keeping him alive."

There was another long silence.

"Is it okay to touch him?"

"Someone get Marcus up here, he's the best plant communicator we have." Sim ordered.

* * *

Meryl was packing as Milly ran into their shared bedroom above the Saloon.

"Oh Meryl! I just heard, on the satellite!" She panted and hauled her own suitcase out from the wardrobe.

"Inepril City is just a hundred iles east of here! We'll be there in under two hours. I'm going to hire a car Milly!"

Lina appeared at the door. In her fingers, she held a set of keys.

"Take my truck. But on no account are you to let Vash drive it, is that clear?"

Meryl blinked at her.

"Yes."

"And I expect it back as good as new with a full tank."

"Yes." Meryl took the keys then gave the woman a hug. "Thank you!"

Driving an air-conditioned truck again was bliss. Meryl floored the accelerator and they roared along the desert road at eighty iles an hour. They had left the smaller trucks behind them quarter of a hour ago, most were opportunists trying to chase the bounty. Lina's truck seemed to be an excellent combination of speed and comfort.

The report they had heard over the satellite was garbled. Some said Vash had attacked the town and taken out the plant, others said that the Terran's had bombed the town to capture Vash, and still others said it was only a Terran attack. She had to go and make sure. If it was only a Terran attack, they at least had a heading on Johnston, which was a good thing. Lina had been sure that Vash, Livio and the twins were following him.

She remembered the last town the Terran's had attacked. They had gone for the town's power plant. So she skirted the damaged town as they arrived and drove into the plant yard. She was not surprised when several men bristling with weapons stopped her at the gates.

"Stranger's aren't welcome here!" He paused as Meryl wound down the window and leaned out. The heat of the desert outside slammed against the side of her face. "Even if they are women."

"We heard the Terran's attacked."

"Yeah, the cruddy beggars left in the middle of the night."

"We also heard about Vash the Stampede?"

"Hah, that's just crap the satellite news put in for sensationalism."

"Yeah, Vash wouldn't do that sort of thing." The other guard put in.

Meryl smiled and nodded. So there were people on this world who knew him.

"Where did the Terran's go?" She asked.

"Drove south as if the hounds of hell were after them."

"Thank you." Meryl reversed the truck.

"Lady, you aren't going after them?" The guard asked, panicked.

"They have something I want!" She turned the truck and drove out into the desert. Ah, if she were lucky they would have no bounty hunters on their tail.

.

The two guards glanced at each other.

"That was Meryl Stryfe."

"Yeah. Pretty thing in real life, isn't she? She always looks so cross on screen."

"Think we should have told her about Vash?"

"What? No. They said we were to tell no one. She'd only want to film him anyway." He paused, his eyes flicking back at the power station. "It'd upset her."

"She was the first to arrive. Must have been pretty urgent ... you don't think? Him and her?"

The other man broke into a fit of coughing.

"He's a plant." He cleared his throat and stared after the truck, then began to laugh. "He'd better start running now if she's after him. She's one determined lady."

.

"Meryl, what's that?"

Meryl glanced up from where she had been following the tank tracks on the road. She had reduced their speed to fifty iles, or the truck seemed to drink fuel.

Milly was pointing at circling buzzards.

"That does not look good." She mumbled. "How far from the road do you think they are?"

"Half an ile."

Meryl pulled off, and carefully navigated around the dunes keeping the birds in sight. They eventually came around a dune to find several birds swarming around a creature. She tugged the horn and the resounding klaxon screech sent the birds scattering.

"Ugh. It's a body." Milly sounded upset.

Meryl checked the surroundings but the dunes were empty. She took out two derringers and dropped down from the cab. Milly picked up her stun gun and watched her back.

She walked over. It was a man in Terran uniform. He'd been shot in the leg by the amount of blood crusted there. The birds could not have been there long, as he was not too badly scratched. She frowned in disbelief; the skin was healing before her eyes. She shoved him over and darted back, her derringers trained on his chest. She hastily holstered them and dove for the man.

"Livio!"

He did not respond. She checked his pulse, he was still alive despite the amount of blood splattered down the front of his coat. By the way it was shredded it looked like someone had knifed him.

"Milly! He's alive. Help me get him in the truck."

It was exceedingly awkward to manoeuvre an injured body over the truck seats and into the back. They laid him out on the nearest bunk, and leaned against the upper bunk getting their breath back.

"Milly, can you drive us out of here without going as fast as you usually do?"

She nodded, and anxiously stared at Livio lying unconscious on the bed.

"Meryl, do you think Mister Vash and the twins are okay?"

Meryl bit her lip. She knew what a fighter Livio was. Who could have done this? Unless Livio had tried to fight a plant? She had no idea how to answer Milly. She was too afraid to even think of the answer herself.

"We head south."

* * *

Vash opened his eyes in shock. They had taken the twins. He had to go and find Livio. He tried to sit up, a cacophony of agony sounded through his brain, and he slumped back against something soft. Everything hurt. He struggled for a moment to get his bearings. The rhythmic beeping of the machines and the smell meant a hospital. Wait. There was something familiar about that ceiling. He had seen it several times before. The Seeds Ship? But that was two months steamer travel away from the town. How long had he been out? Why was he here? There were some large gaps in his memory.

He cautiously managed to sit up. His back felt like one large aching bruise. He never had bruises that lasted longer than a few hours. What had happened? He remembered being shot, but he had not felt anything like this. Someone had attached a new prosthetic arm. He flexed it and grinned when an automatic machine gun flipped out, then settled back in. He had missed that. He put his weight on his arm, his fingers stroking the sheet. Good all his hand senses were working. Where was everyone? He then realised by the dim light it was probably the middle of the night.

He twisted his head to try to see his back, but could only make out his own scars and patches underneath the hospital shirt. It did not look bruised, but it sure felt it. Ow. He lay on his stomach. That didn't ease the discomfort much. He sat up again, feeling restless. His body was tired, but his mind far too active. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and pushed himself to his feet. He had not counted on how jelly legged he would be. His ankles collapsed, then his knees then the rest of him followed. He managed to catch himself before cracking his head on the ground, but not before tugging all the wires and tubes connected to him, toppling equipment and pulling out cords.

The lights came on as the machines sounded their alarms and he looked sheepishly up at the worried nurses and doctors that hurried in. He knew them all by name; he had watched them all grow into adults. They were currently giving him the stare he had seen parents give a naughty child.

"Hello." He grinned. "Ah, a little help?"

"You should not even be awake, let alone out of bed!" Aledri, a large male nurse hurried over, picked him off the floor as if he weighed nothing, and sat him back on the bed.

They fussed around him, checking the machines and taking his pulse and checking his responses. He noticed Luida slip into the room behind them and raised a hand in greeting. The woman looked so composed, but they must have roused her from sleep. She had two of her guards with her, but the usual entourage was missing. How early was it?

The medical staff, noticing Luida, put their equipment away and left.

"He's to rest, see he doesn't try standing again. He's just fallen over."

He lay back in bed, his knees now aching along with his back. For now, this was where he had to stay. He smiled, but Luida did not return his smile.

"They are right." Luida said quietly. "You'll fall over dead if you are not careful."

"I'm feeling pretty alive now!" He exclaimed with a smile then pouted when she did not smile back. What was so wrong? "My back hurts though."

"I'm not surprised! Don't you remember anything?"

He felt a thrill of shock then. Remember what? He'd been shot. But he'd been shot before. It had never felt like this.

"H-how many days am I missing and what happened?" He asked cautiously.

"What do you last remember?" Luida asked.

"Watching the Earth Federation Peace Force drive off with three of my friends while they shot me."

"You've been unconscious for a week. You were flown here two days ago. The rest of the time, we spent trying to convince the power plant that saved you that we were your friends and would know how to help you. We had to get Abe Jefferson up from December to talk to her before she would release you."

He tried to make sense of this.

"Abe Jefferson? A power plant saved me?" He had seen Knives make use of power plants in odd ways; he supposed that they could do the same to him if they had the yen. What had he done to himself?

"Abe's an independent plant like you. He was here until yesterday, to make sure you were healing. He's gone back to December, says his work is important." Luida's expression clearly indicated she did not agree.

If only he had woken the day before, he would have met this man.

"What did the power plant do to me? Is that why my back is so sore?"

"She fused you to the glass and almost encased you entirely in those angel wings and feathers. Abe says she was healing you so that you would not have to use any of your own power. He seemed to find it amusing, said she was sweet on you."

Vash grinned.

"I thought she was quite beautiful myself."

The expressions on their faces made him laugh. Sometimes he found people could not quite keep up. He would have thought that Luida might have been able to see his side.

"Is the plant okay?"

"Yes, she's delivering her regular output; Abe says that she'll expect a visit."

He nodded, that sounded right. He would bring bourbon instead of blood the next time.

"It's two thirty in the morning. Do you want to have a discussion now, or can we wait till dawn?"

No, he could not wait.

"My friends. I need to find them. You know Livio, and I had two children with me, a girl and a boy, they'd be about thirteen or so. The Terrans who stole the plant power, also kidnapped them."

"Abe tells me that Livio is on his way to December, but we heard no report of children. What do you think the Terran's would do with them?"

Vash stared at her in horror.

He had to tell her. He had to protect them. They could help, but Chronica had asked him to keep it a secret. He put his head in his hands trying to think what to do. He hated the confusion. It was not his secret. He could at least protect her.

"Vash?" Luida hurried over to his side. "What's wrong."

"They're kids." He blurted out. "Half. Half human. They're going to kill them. Put them in that coffin and drain their powers. You've got to help them!"

Luida's face was a picture of astonishment.

"Vash?" She said cautiously. "Say that again, and explain the parts I don't understand."

.

Vash stood with his hand against the glass of the cold sleep chamber. He had a blanket over the hospital clothes he wore and slippers on his feet. Luida had promised to go after the children on condition he promised he would not leave until he had healed. He had made a right hash of the explanation, panic had set in and he had tried to be cagy on the details. He had spent much of the interview either sweating with alarm or blushing crimson at the things she asked. Lucky he had read all that stuff Chronica had given him or he would not have known how to answer.

He closed his eyes and placed his forehead against the cool glass. He had sent them to Livio, at least that way they would have some support. It was all he could do to make it down to the cold sleep chamber and back to the hospital bed. He could not remember when he had last felt so weak. How badly had he injured himself if this was how he had felt even after a plant had tried to heal him? He had a disquieting suspicion that if she had not he would be dead.

He clenched his hand into a fist. He suddenly missed Knives so much it hurt. He had spent so much time fighting with him and trying to get him to change his thinking that sometimes he forgot the companionship that they had once shared. He wanted his brother there beside him, to pick apart his stupidity and to challenge him to be better than he was. He wanted a brother who would not give him odd stares, or indulgent smiles like humans did when he thought plants were beautiful. Knives would understand that, as angry and misguided as he was.

He curled over, his fist sliding down the glass, as he could no longer take the ache inside. He was so tired of being alone. He tried to be friends with everyone, but so few could survive around him. The strongest humans he had known had not survived. He felt tears come as he smiled at the memory of Wolfwood. Livio was of the same ilk, though more cautious now that he had his children. Those poor innocent children. He stared unseeingly out through the glass of the cold sleep chamber, at the hundreds of humans preserved there. Tears fell without him even noticing them. He had failed Chronica. He had to rescue those kids, but he was too damn weak. They were even younger than he and Knives had been at the great fall, and they had to face such terror and death at the hands of other plants. He clenched his hands in panic. He would do anything in the world to save them from going through what he had. He tried to reach out to them with his mind; he felt a sudden tremor surge through his body as he connected with all the plants in the ship, then all the plants in the surrounding area then as suddenly as he felt the contact it vanished. He found himself slumped on the floor, his head throbbing so hard he could not see straight.

"Vash!"

Jessica's voice cut through his brain like a sawing knife. He whimpered.

She grabbed his shoulder and shook him; it felt like she was tearing flesh from bone. He then saw how worried she looked, he did his best to smile and comfort her, but his face formed a fixed rictus and he could not find the energy to move other than to twitch spasmodically. Everything hurt! She vanished. A few pain dazed moments later, he found himself hauled to his feet by Brad. He could only release his agony in panted breaths as the man touched his back, it hurt so much.

"What were you thinking coming down here in the cold, you idiot!" Brad grumbled at him, then realised he could not stand on his own.

Jessica carried his slippers that had fallen off as Brad hurried as fast as he could back to the hospital.

It didn't help that Jessica set up her chair right beside his bed and stroked his hair.

"It's okay. You're safe. It's okay." She whispered at him like a mantra. Her words pounded at him like a mallet driving pegs into his wounded heart. They were not safe and it was not okay.

Someone was speaking about sedating him. He tried to protest but his body simply would not respond. The next thing he was aware of was of a relaxing sensation all over his body. He felt as though his muscles were water and the pain lessened. He drifted in and out of consciousness, but it did not knock him out.

"I've never seen him so out of it." Luida voice came to him.

"What about the black hair thing?" Jessica worried. "Is he going crazy?"

"No. I don't think that is it." Luida said. "Something happened. He called out to all the plants on the ship, perhaps all the plants on the planet. They tell us he's searching ..." She fell silent.

"What is he searching for?" Jessica asked.

Luida did not reply. Instead, he felt her put her hand on his forehead.

"We'll find them." She murmured.

He felt anxiety clutch at him. He could do nothing. No. He relaxed. He could trust them. He gave himself over to sleep who was calling with her seductive soporific voice.

* * *

Meryl sat in the queue of cars, trucks and other vehicles to get into December City, quietly fuming. She had hoped to already be home in the bath by now. Livio seemed indifferent, and Milly kept peering out of the window, anxious. Was this the Terran's again? Milly, as the least known member of their group, left the truck to find out what the delay was this time. She returned with a smile.

"It's a barricade." She declared as she climbed back into the truck. "They let you in if you have business in December or beyond, but you're going to have a hard time if you're Terran. Johnston apparently tried to take the city. They say whole swathes of the north city are rubble."

"I never figured him to be that stupid." Livio muttered. "He seems like the type who only acts if he knows he can get what he wants. When did the attack happen?"

"Four nights ago."

"He's asking for a war!" Livio grumbled.

"That's what I heard some people saying." Milly murmured anxiously.

"No, we'll stop him before it gets to that." Livio said confidently.

They were waved past the barricade, and as Meryl drove through the first half ile of the city, surrounded by shell-demolished buildings, she did not feel the confidence Livio did.

When she entered her room in the office, Meryl found Abe slouched in her chair, rocking it back on the hind legs and resting his studded boots on the desk. He had new piercings in the top of his ears and wore leather bracers on his arms. The collection of chunky silver rings on his left hand would make a good knuckleduster. He had decided to make his Mohawk striped today, alternating red, black, red. Over his white shirt and jeans he wore a black waistcoat that came down to his thighs.

He leaped up so energetically that she could not believe how he managed to land on both feet, catch the chair and stay upright.

"Guess who I met!" He crowed, slamming his hand down with a metallic clunk.

She gaped at him. He had not even given her time to greet him, and this was her first day back.

"Vash the Stampede!"

Meryl felt her jaw drop. She had been running around for months looking for him and Abe had stayed at the office and had met him!

"He was shot full of angel shot, silly bugger, it's going to knock him out for weeks, working that crap out of his system."

"What?" Meryl breathed.

"Angel shot? Don't you know it? I suppose not, it is illegal to use it on Earth. There are those unscrupulous enough to use it to take down plants. Messes with your gate something weird. It isn't permanent, just takes ages to heal. When you're used to injuries taking a few days or so to heal, having to sit with them for three weeks is a pain in the arse."

"Where is he?" Meryl asked anxiously.

"With Luida. She called me out. He got himself into a right complication with a power plant. But we sorted it and he's on the mend." He grinned. "Are you heading over there right now? He'll need someone to look after him." He sang suggestively.

Meryl put a hand on her chest and breathed out. So he was safe.

"Abe." She whispered. "Ezrah has taken the plant twins who were travelling with us."

"May he be eternally cursed with boils on the arse." Abe pronounced and sat down as though abruptly exhausted. He peered expectantly out of the door. "Where is Milly girl?"

"A group from the Seed's ship contacted Livio. They were stuck out beyond the barricade, so she went back out with him. I wanted to start the investigation as soon as possible."

Abe nodded.

"I suppose we had better hear the entire story if we're going to extract the twins." He got up and stuck his head out of the door. "Calor, Teres! We've another plant kidnapping. It is the reason Vash got himself peppered in angel shot. See, he's not entirely stupid."

"I've seen his record." Calor murmured in her soft voice as she entered the room. "He's not all there upstairs." She was dressed in a grey pencil skirt and ruffled blouse, the man who entered after her was wearing a snappy black suit far too elegant for work, but Meryl had never seen him in anything less than elegant attire. He raised an eyebrow at Calor.

"Yet, for some reason, you have a photograph of him on the inside of your diary." Teres remarked.

The two plants glared furiously at each other. Meryl got the distinct impression more conversation was happening than she could hear. She watched Abe's face as his expressions let her know the mood of the conversation. He rolled his eyes.

"That's enough." He growled exasperated, then turned to Meryl. "We're listening, tell us what you know."

The sound of a fist hammering on the door interrupted their meeting. Stella, one of the girls who handled the massive amount of paperwork Fifth Moon Investigations dealt with, darted into Meryl's office.

"Abe, we've got the Feds here again! They want us out at the barricade."

Abe rolled his eyes.

"I've got the plant listing." Teres shoved himself out of his chair with a slight reluctance. "I'll take the documents and see if this is one of them we can trust."

"Use your discretion." Abe added.

Teres hurried out and Meryl glanced at Abe questioningly.

He grimaced.

"Someone let it slip that Fifth Moon Investigations knows about plants. Dunno, might have been some advert somewhere." He grinned at her. "But since this attack, every time they apprehend someone they think is a plant, they send for us and we have to go and vet them." He paused. "So far all we have found are terrified humans, but sometimes we lie to get them in the city. People need a little mercy and the Fed's don't need to know all our business."

A siren went off and Meryl jumped. It wailed then was cut off.

"What was…"

The siren sounded again, then was as abruptly called off.

"…that?" Meryl asked.

"Evacuation." Abe grumbled.

The siren sounded again and was cut off.

"Ignore it." Abe advised and ran his hand over the shaved side of his head.

"What?" Meryl exclaimed.

"Everyone is going to be out on the streets for the next two hours. Wait until the press has stopped and we'll be able to move with ease."

"Where is everyone evacuating to?"

"There are camps out south, and towns. Everyone has been sent to allocated areas. I got Calor to do some negotiating on our behalf. We're to be quartered at a certain orphanage."

.

The suns had just set and the last of the wave of evacuees were leaving the city when Milly pulled up and parked the large truck outside the office. Several people clambered off the roof with their packs and called their thanks to her, then joined the people heading south.

Meryl stood at the door, relieved to see her partner. Since the Fed's had called Teres out and the sirens had gone off, she'd been worried that Ezrah was making his rounds with less discrimination than usual, and that Milly might be caught up in it. She wondered what bureaucratic nonsense was keeping Teres.

Livio pushed open the cab door and dropped to the ground. He stretched and gave Meryl a smile.

"So this is Fifth Moon Investigations? Working overtime?"

"Yes. We heard some kids need our help."

His expression faltered for a moment and he gave her a grim nod.

"Thanks." He mumbled gruffly.

He was followed by Brad and several others from Seeds. Milly unloaded her stun gun, then handed Meryl the keys.

"Meryl, we need to get the truck back to Lina. It is chaos out there; they say that there is an army of tanks several iles out. I even heard someone say that they will bomb the city tonight."

Meryl felt panic rise, and thought fast.

"Livio said earlier that he wanted to go on to the orphanage, he can keep it with him there." Meryl suggested, and stepped aside as the people Brad had brought with him filed into the building behind her. The last dropped jauntily down from the cab. Meryl felt her mouth fall open as shock and wonder flowed through her. Vash slammed the door closed and turned to them with a broad smile on his face. He wore a new red duster with no bullet holes in it. She could not think when she had ever seen him look so neat. Moreover, the style showed his height and slender build to his advantage. Somehow, the man looked unbelievably handsome.

"Hello! So this is your new business?"

Meryl blinked, trying to think, there was something about the way he moved that was captivating.

"Yes, Mister Vash, do you like it?" Milly asked enthusiastically.

He squinted up at the signboard in the dark.

"Fifth Moon?" He whined in protest. "You could have chosen a better name!"

Meryl felt her fist clench. Handsome or not, that was Vash all right. Right now, she wanted to pound him.

"It's to remind us why we do things." Milly explained. "So that doesn't happen again."

Vash gaped at her in some surprise then stared down at his boots.

"It won't."

Meryl felt shaken. It was the first time she had ever heard him admit his lack of power.

"Well, look who's here!" Abe exclaimed pushing past Meryl and hurrying down the steps to Vash. Abe stopped short of him and stared at him. Vash stared back, his eyes taking in the tall striped Mohawk, ear piercings and the openly worn knuckle-duster that were the silver rings on his hand.

"How on earth are you out of bed?" Abe demanded.

Vash frowned at him.

"Do I know you?"

"Abe Jefferson!" Abe stuck out a hand and Vash shook it with a growing smile.

"You're the plant who helped me."

"Yes!" Abe said and continued to stare at Vash. He walked around him, inspecting him from side to side, then reached out and Vash neatly side stepped his hand.

"Ah." Abe said with a grin. "So you do have nerves."

"What are you doing, Mister Jefferson?" Milly asked, bewildered.

"This idiot-"

"Hey!"

"You are an idiot." Abe said firmly. "You got yourself peppered full of angel shot. It usually incapacitates a plant for three weeks. How are you even able to walk?"

"It does hurt a little." Vash admitted gingerly with a sheepish smile.

"A little?" Abe exclaimed. "Crap man, when I got shot with the stuff I couldn't get out of bed for two solid weeks. Had to have a bed pan and everything."

"What is angel shot?" Vash asked.

"It's illegal. But it is the best way to incapacitate an independent plant. Tiny little gate beads. They eat away at you at the same rate that you heal, so the wounds fester, but I gave you the antidote, it just steps up your gate flow a bit more, so you heal faster than you usually would, and your body will heal itself in three weeks. Don't try use your powers, or it'll incapacitate you."

Vash winced with too knowing an expression to be innocent of trying.

"You did?" Abe exclaimed. "Again, I ask, how are you managing to stand? Can you not feel pain?" He shook his head as Vash gave him a helpless grin.

"Let's get inside; we need your side of the story, Vash."

Abe turned and gave Meryl a suggestive wink and sauntered up the stairs.

"Don't touch him. He won't thank you for the pain." He whispered as he stepped past.

Meryl looked up as Vash touched her shoulder.

"I heard they took the show off the air. Sorry."

She smiled up at the soft apologetic smile on his face.

"It was actually the best thing that ever happened. Milly, Abe and I started this place. I'm just so glad to see you're alive. The last thing we saw was that mountain come down. Milly and I searched for days."

He grinned.

"The twins dragged me out. I don't remember much. They saved my life several times." He looked up at the sign again. "Now we must save theirs."

She reached out, but did not touch him. He took her hand with the prosthetic fingers of his left hand.

"Does it hurt?"

"Yes." He said simply. "But I can live with it." He released her hand and put his left hand on top of her head. "Don't cry Meryl. It will be alright."

Oh no, was she crying? She wiped at her tears.

"Do you think that I'm not going to cope?"

He was comforting her. How had this happened?

"Your friend Abe Jefferson says its three weeks, so that's one more to go." He put his hand on her shoulder. "All our friends are waiting for us. Let's go in."

.

Livio was waiting at the door as they entered. He waved to Meryl, his eyes held an intent determination she had not seen since he had woken with cold fury in his eyes after they had rescued him.

"I have to get to the orphanage." He held a letter delicately in his hand. "Abe says that Chronica is there. She's alive." His voice broke slightly. "I need to go to her."

Meryl handed over the keys.

"Remember Lina wants that truck in mint condition."

She gave a squeak of surprise when Livio grabbed her into a hug.

"Thank you so much!" He released her. "Thank you Abe!"

He darted down to the truck and they crowded around the door to watch him drive down the road, stopping every so often to let people on the truck.

"Good." Abe said quietly. "He's the twin's father, can't have him hear us be as ruthless in our planning as we need to be."

There was silence in the room and Meryl noticed all the men from the Seeds ship staring at Vash.

"Something you want to tell us?" Brad growled at him.

"What?" Vash asked.

"These kids we're hunting are not yours?"

"No." Vash said surprised, but gave Brad the most honestly haunted look Meryl had ever seen on his face. He seemed to be unable to find words to express himself.

"Aw, leave off the lecture Brad." Abe said, closing the door. "Vash had his reasons. And if I know Chronica, she probably extracted some binding promise from him to look after them as if they were his own. She's a formidable woman." He said with admiration.

Brad gave the man a nod of respect, but he scowled at Vash.

"You had Jessica in tears not telling her about those kids!" Brad snapped.

"Sorry!" Vash pleaded, shrinking back.

"When this is all over you'd better bring them over for her to see them."

Vash scratched the back of his neck and smiled sheepishly.

"Okay."

"And their real parents! Honestly, what we have to put up with you and your shenanigans!"

"S-sorry." He pleaded pathetically.

They shoved the tables together in the main office and Abe took the map off the wall in Meryl's office and placed it down across them. She wished he'd taken the time to remove all the silly encouraging notes he had tagged to it. They said things like 'The Great Stampede Hunt' and 'Typhoon Sighted' and the most mortifying of all a large red heart declaiming 'The Search for Love and Peace.' Along one side were photographs of Vash, and various wanted posters. Vash peered at it and she just happened to be watching his face when he glanced at her, wriggled an eyebrow with wry amusement, and continued as if he had not done so.

"I like this map!" He exclaimed. "It's the first time someone has shown me my wanted poster without holding a gun to my head."

"You're among friends, idiot." Abe made as if to touch him and Vash dodged. Abe's grin widened and he wriggled his fingers threateningly. Vash scowled at him.

"We've had mixed reports on Johnston." Abe said. "It seems that his forces are divided, though how many different units, we are unsure. We know Ezrah is in charge of one group, and Johnston another, but from the reports we've had of them bombing towns to use their power plants indicate that there are at least three other units."

"Any idea where his base is?" Brad asked. "He's sure to pay attention if we go and kick it down."

"No. But as all his units have been steadily heading south east we assume it's near here somewhere." Abe placed his finger on December City. "The fact that no one knows where is very worrying."

There was a moment of unhappy contemplation of the map.

"I'm worried that Teres is not back yet." Calor interrupted them. "Abe, you don't think it was a ruse do you?"

Meryl felt worry clamp around her heart at Calor's words, the last thing they needed was Teres to go missing.

"I don't think so." Abe said with a frown. "The Feds at the door were telling the truth as far as they knew. With Johnston in the hills threatening this place, maybe there are some plants here."

There was a distant sound of thunder, and Abe stared at the door in horror. Light flashed up in the sky and thunder sounded again. A siren began to wail.

"Take the emergency folders." Abe ordered. "Let's get out of here."

"But what about Teres!" Calor wailed.

The door slammed and Meryl ran for it, throwing it open.

"Vash!" She screamed as he tore down the road.

Abe dodged past her.

"Is he going towards the bombing?" He gasped incredulously.

"Yes." Her voice trembled.

"Stella, show Meryl and Milly and the others along the evacuation route! Calor, he has angel shot in his system, cannot even use his natural defenses! Let's go keep him alive."

"Abe!" Meryl shrieked as he tore off after Vash, Calor darted past her and followed.

She clenched her fists to her face.

"Stupid plants!" She screamed after them.

Another explosion followed and the siren continued to wail.

Meryl turned in fury to the room.

"We are an investigation team. We need to find those twins. That means we're going to need to find Johnston's base. Anyone have any ideas?"

There was silence.

"Ah, Meryl, you have a scary look on your face." Milly murmured.

Another thunderous rumble and the building they were in trembled.

She breathed out a furious breath.

"Get what we need for the investigation, and let's set up an operations center at the evacuation location."

.

Meryl wished she had not been so eager to send Livio on ahead with the van. Each of them carried a pack with various items Stella and the other office girls, Leonora and Abigail deemed necessary. As much of it was paper work, the packs were heavy. Should the other side of their business be revealed to anyone, almost all the independent plants on the planet would be vulnerable. She had never realized information could be so crucial or so deadly. They had also packed in as much ammunition as they could carry, and like everyone else on the street, wore their weapons to hand. They hurried along as the bombs sounded as if they were falling closer and closer to the north of the city.

"Well I'll be damned!" A voice exclaimed in the darkness. "Milly Thompson!"

They all peered into the dark street as a man in a wheel chair rolled himself out. His legs were wrapped in a blanket and he had a pack on over his shoulders. He wheeled rapidly over to them with the ease of one long used to the chair and its maneuverability.

"Rimor!" Milly exclaimed sympathetically. "Did they leave you here all alone?"

"No. I let them leave so I wouldn't have rocks thrown at me." He grimaced. "Just 'cause I have a thick Terran accent and am no use at mimicking the local drawl, means I'm the bad guy." He looked around at them. "Hello Meryl, are these also Fifth Moon folks?"

"Yes, and good friends." Meryl smiled at him. Rimor was one of the plants Abe had rescued, but he had been so badly crippled by what had happened to him that he no longer could use his legs. He had taken up his old hobby of tinkering as a trade and was becoming a good watchmaker.

"You want someone to carry that pack?" Brad asked gruffly.

"Nope, but thanks." Rimor said with a grin at Brad.

There was another thunderous explosion.

"Let's get moving!" Rimor sped off down the street and they were hard pressed to keep the pace he kept. "Bloody Johnston and his bloody tanks! If I had my legs I'd be right out there throwing the last of what I had at him."

"Abe, Calor and Vash are." Milly assured him. "Don't worry."

"Vash?" Rimor exclaimed. "Hah! So you found him! Excellent."

They caught up with the last of the evacuees and walked out of December City. Meryl glanced back and saw smoke rising. A bright flash of light rippled over the buildings, casting them into silhouette for a moment then the thunderous explosion took down a prominent tower block. She turned away feeling shaken. They walked into the night.


	24. Chapter 24

_**Chapter 24**_

December City

Vash made it to the west wall of the city and clambered up amid the Feds and armed citizens who were guarding it. People glanced at him as he threaded past, most recognizing him and gawking. He found a good vantage point, leaped up onto the four _feel_ thick parapet, and stared out into the darkness. He could make out several tanks in the distance. A shell rose up from the desert, keening as it cut through the air. He had seen two fall on the city as he ran. What were they thinking?

His revolver could not make that distance. He calmly reached down and took the rifle from the man standing beside him.

"Thank you!" He grinned and shouldered the weapon, sighted and fired.

The shell detonated in mid air with a deafening explosion. It hurt his ears, but he could not feel the concussion from it. That had come from beyond the hills, someone had a long range cannon.

The Feds had set up trenches beyond the barricade and were trying to shell the tanks, but they seemed to remain just out of range. It was all so senseless, he felt his gut wrench with anguish. Why were the Terran's doing this?

"Oi Vash!"

He turned and found Abe leaning on the wall behind him catching his breath. He crouched down on the wall. Abe looked like one of the more outlandish folk on No Man's Land, but he was Terran and that was useful, he would know something of how the Terran's thought.

"Why'd you run away?" Abe demanded. "You're defenseless out here, that's the worst thing about angel shot; you can't use your power!"

Vash blinked at him, was that what had him worried?

"I'm not defenseless." He grinned. "Don't worry about me. Worry about all this."

"But you…" Abe protested.

"He ain't lying!" The man from whom Vash had taken the rifle said with wide eyes. "I'll go and get you a better gun and some more ammo, Vash." He hurried off.

Another shell was launched and shortly after it two others. Vash raised his rifle and shot them out of the sky before they reached the city.

"Abe close your mouth, you'll catch flies!" Calor panted as she caught up to him. "What did he do that you're staring so much."

"He's a sharpshooter." Abe said in awe.

"Yes. They call him a gunslinger. It's to be expected." Calor said slowly.

"Help me up!" Abe grinned up at Vash. "I'll give you a hand."

"Sure." Vash helped the man up onto the wall. Abe did not take out a gun, but rubbed his hands together.

"You're not using your power are you?"

"Yup. Don't worry. I'm going after those tanks."

"Don't kill anyone!"

Abe stared at him.

"What? They're shelling the city."

"They are people; they are caught up in something bigger than they are. They want to live just like you and I. Don't kill them."

"You my fine friend have got a hell of a lot of explaining to do! Don't kill people! How can you carry a gun with that sentiment?"

Vash ignored him and raised the rifle as another shell fired. Abe negligently flicked out his hand and tiny ball of plasma lanced through the sky and consumed it.

"Thanks."

"Agh! How am I supposed to climb this wall in a pencil skirt?" Calor demanded from behind them.

Vash reached down and with Abe's help they lifted her onto the wall.

"Not the best combat attire." She sniffed and straightened the skirt. "Abe if Vash can shoot the shells down, leave them to him. Using your power will only cause more gate decay."

"I wasn't after the shells, but mister pacifist here was saying no killing people! In a war!"

"This isn't a war." Calor pointed out. "It's Johnston trying to get at the power plants in the city. He needs them to charge those devices of his. The Feds have been hunting him since they worked out what was going on." She smiled up at Vash. "We have you to thank for that. If you hadn't intervened at that last town, no one would have known."

"Vash! What do you think?" The man from whom he had taken the rifle had returned with another gun and a case of ammunition.

Vash looked down and smiled. It was a long range rifle, with a laser sight.

"Any takers?" He asked, holding out the rifle he'd been using.

"I can't shoot that distance worth a damn." Abe declared. "Give it to Calor."

Vash shot down several more shells and there was a growing audience of onlookers below him. He heard a worrying argument start up behind him.

"It's him!"

"The plant with the bounty!"

"He's got friends with him. I think that Mohawk dude is a plant too."

"But if we take him, we get the $$200 billion!"

"Have you been watching? He's shooting shells out of the sky!"

"You touch him and I'll skin you alive, your face last so you can enjoy the show."

"I'll have him before you can get your knife!"

There was a click of a safety catch.

"Mohawk dude will incinerate you, if you so much as think about raising that pistol." Abe spoke in a calm icy voice. He flicked a tiny plasma orb over them and the crowd dispersed yelling.

"Hey! Why did you frighten them? That's not good!" Vash protested. "We're here to protect them!"

He shot three more shells out of the sky. They were sending more now since they had started shooting them.

"They are being stupid humans."

"They're people and they're scared. Of course they will do silly things!" Vash snapped back.

Abe gave him a cross-eyed stare.

"Vash, why do you have a bounty on your head?"

"I don't know." He protested. "They don't trust Knives and I for some reason."

"Your brother stood down tall hammer." Calor said with a wry tone of disbelief. "Took out the most formidable weapon currently known, and they say you have a bigger gate than he. Wonder now?"

"Oh." Abe said, as if he worked something out.

"They're scared of me?" Vash lowered his rifle in dismay. "B-but I fought to protect them!"

He raised it and shot another shell.

"They fear what they do not understand." Abe mused sadly. "And what they cannot control. You frighten them because you're utterly free. It is not in their nature to trust a plant. They chip us, you know, so that we cannot create fused entities, or draw enough power to destroy a planet. But you could. Your brother did. Now see what's got them crapping in their pants? It's your potential that they fear, not your reality."

"But I would never do that!" He said in horror.

"I know. I see that now. Even though I read all those reports about you, I did not understand that you were a pacifist. If you carried a gun, to my mind you accepted the situation that you would kill. It's what they train all of us to do when we enter the academy back on earth. Shoot to kill. Dead enemies can't shoot you back." Abe gazed at him with a sad smile. "But you believe with every fiber of your being that people are worth saving."

Three shells were launched and Vash raised the rifle once more. Just as he shot the first one, there was a brief flash of light.

"Get down!" Abe screamed, and threw up his hands. Light lanced from them as both arms cracked and transformed, growing wings and apertures. There was a thunderous detonation as a ball of light grew and vanished above the barricade, taking out a neat circle in the fencing.

"There's a plant out there. I'd bet it's Ezrah! He uses sneaky attacks like that. Get off the wall, he knows we are here!"

He leaped down and the people on the wall took one look at his arms and ran, yelling. He gaped at them in confusion.

"Hey!" He yelled after them. "I wasn't going to attack you! I was defending you!"

The terrified huddle of Feds who had command of the wall were all who remained to hear his protest.

"Vash! You have a hell of a lot to teach your sorry world about plants!" He complained.

"They're scared." Vash shouted down.

"Abe, put those away. Your gate can't handle it for long!" Calor sat down on the wall and kicked him in the shoulder with the stiletto heel she wore.

Abe lowered his arms and they transformed back. Abe helped her down from the wall then waved at Vash. There was sudden gunfire and Vash leaped down amid a hail of bullets.

"Ungrateful son's of udderless cows!" Abe yelled at the people down below. "You okay?"

Vash straightened in time to see a grenade sail over the parapet.

"Get down!" He grabbed the two plants and threw himself over them as the grenade exploded. He felt the shards slam into the back of his coat, but the material held.

"Ow." He breathed. His back was a flowing sea of agony.

Abe helped him to his feet as Calor picked himself up.

"What are you wearing man?"

He grinned as he held onto the wall, trying to see straight, the pain was doing odd things to his mind.

"Bullet proof coat, leather body armor. In my profession you need it."

"Think that got them?" A voice asked.

Abe rolled his eyes and casually flicked a plasma orb over the edge of the wall. There were wild shouts and screams from below.

"Don't do that!" Vash scolded him, and leaped at the wall to see people fleeing, but none injured.

"They just did it to us! I was returning the favour."

"They're frightened! Don't torment them further than they can bare! You are here to protect people, to help people, not to have your own private vendetta against everyone who annoys you!"

Abe raised an eyebrow.

"They would have loved you on earth, you know. You sound like the perfect plant, protect and serve the humans."

"Don't mock him Abe." Calor said, hurt. "He's better than any trained fanatic is. He's like that because he wants to be like that, and that is more beautiful than anything they ever taught us about selfless service. They do it to control us. He does it out of love!" She turned to Vash, who was surprised at her vote of confidence, and saddened when he realized how they had been treated back on earth. "I want to learn to love people like you do." She smiled. "You have a beautiful soul."

He felt himself blushing.

"Aw, it's just that I want to show that this world is made of love and peace!"

She kissed her fingertips and touched his cheek.

"You are."

He did not know when he had last blushed so much.

"Get down!" Abe yelled and bounded up on the wall again, his arms twisting and changing again as he flung out a ball of light, then another, then another as three headed for their direction.

"Abe!" Calor screamed.

"I can hold it." Abe's voice shook and he crouched down on the wall, his arms reverting to their human shape again. He gasped as he caught his breath. "Whoever is out there has about as much strength as I do. It's not like Ezrah to do things by half measures."

"If it is Ezrah, he has black hair." Vash informed him. "Luctus got him in the device Johnston had."

"What?" Abe sat down hard on the wall. "Man, that is the best news I ever heard!" He leaped up towards the hills where the tanks were and yelled at the night. "Haha! Up yours Ezrah! Welcome to the Last Run Club you stinking sack of piss! Ha ha! Yeeha! Sucks to be you!"

"Excuse his more childish moments." Calor murmured.

There was gunfire and Abe stumbled off the wall, swearing. Calor tried to catch him and Vash caught her as she fell, they ended up in a heap.

Vash groaned in pain, this was the second time in the same amount of minutes that he had hit his back. It felt like someone had used him for target practice.

"Stupid humans!" Abe cussed.

"Excuse me?"

They looked up at a Federal officer from where they lay on a heap on the ground. The officer had both hands up as if they were holding him at gunpoint.

"But who are you people?"

Abe sat up and checked his Mohawk.

"Abe Jefferson. I'm a plant. You've got a plant out there. He's got me pinned here unless you want to lose your wall. Now don't get scared and run off yelling. We're just here to help. Oh and that's Calor and Vash, they're also plants."

The officer stared at them.

"Why are you helping us?"

Abe closed his eyes and grimaced.

"Vash, this is your world. Do the explaining."

Vash tried to explain, he tried a number of very convincing arguments, but all the people did was stare at him.

"Love and peace?" The officer said eventually. "That's what this is all about?" He took off his cap and scratched his head. "Well, we sure could do with a lot more of that. My men and I are ignoring your bounty tonight, Vash. Go and shoot rockets with your friends."

"Thank you!"

.

Ten minutes later they stood on the wall and watched the tanks retreat.

"I think they're calling it a night." Calor remarked. "Come on, we need to find Teres."

They called their farewell to the Feds as they passed.

"Keep out of sight Vash!" The officer called. "That bounty will have people watching for you when you get off the wall."

"Thank you!" He waved, glad of the reminder.

"They can just try it!" Abe growled.

.

Vash waited in the shadows of the alley with Abe, as Calor went across to the federal office. She came running out a minute later sobbing.

"Abe! Abe! They have Teres!"

Abe caught her as she fell into his arms and sobbed onto his chest.

Several people followed her out.

"What did you do to him?" Abe growled at them.

"Oh, she has friends!" One of the officers said with relief to the others, and they gathered around.

"She was looking for the plant, Teres. He went out with one of our parties to negotiate with the Terran's and they were ambushed. No one came back. That's why they retreated. We think they were after a plant, whether it be a power plant or an independent one. We're sorry for the loss of your friend. We lost good men and women in that unit."

Calor continued to cry.

"Let's go." Vash said quietly, his back was killing him; he wanted to do something to distract him from the pain.

"Where?" Abe asked. "We don't know where they are. We don't have the strength or the fire power to take them on. They're going to retreat to their safe haven. Our best bet is to find it and make sure they sincerely regret taking any of my friends."

"We will find them." Vash reassured him stubbornly.

Abe turned to the officer.

"What information do you have on their hideout?"

"We think it is a crashed Earth destroyer, but no one is sure of the location."

He fetched a map and described the surrounding area to Abe.

"We think it's east or north east of December. But it is mountainous there, and the satellite images show us nothing."

"That lead better than nothing." Abe said grimly. "We're headed there tomorrow morning. We'll come through here to collect anyone who wants to come with us."

"Who are you with? The Central Earth government?"

"No. Fifth Moon Investigations. We find information on plants. What you do with it, is your business." He grinned at them and left them puzzling over that.

.

They walked west under the moonlit night sky where three moons hung visible. Vash felt oddly restless, but the fact that they headed in the right direction soothed him. It was steadily becoming colder.

"Let's pick up the pace." Abe said and slipped into a jog. Even better. Running hurt, but it beat walking in the cold, which was making his muscles knot and cramp painfully. After half an hour, Calor and Abe were beginning to lag.

"Hey! I bet those are the people who evacuated." Abe pointed into the dark.

"Those are rocks." Calor snapped. "I'm tired. Let's walk a bit."

"No, I think I'm right."

Vash peered through the moonlight. They could be people, they were moving. Ah.

"Bet you twenty double dollars that they are people." Abe offered.

"Done!" Calor declared. "We walk the rest of the night if they're not!"

"Okay."

Vash smiled as he recognized the stragglers near the back of the group. Milly was distinctive in her height and the way she carried the stun gun over her shoulder. Meryl was beside her. The group checked behind them as they heard their approach.

Abe staggered up to them, bent over with his hands on his knees and breathed out with a gasp.

"Told you it was them!" He said to Calor who put her hand on his back and leaned on him, very out of breath. Vash stopped beside them watching them, unfazed by the exercise. His coat tails, now with a new collection of bullet holes, blew out alongside him in the breeze.

The other evacuees who were on the road with them stared as they passed.

"I can't believe how out of shape you have allowed yourselves to become!" A man in a wheel chair rolled over to them and scolded. "Is this how ex Earth Federation plant pilots conduct themselves?"

He looked like a plant himself. Vash smiled.

"Screw Earth." Abe spat and stood up. He turned to Calor. "That will be twenty double dollars, thank you very much!"

She scowled at him but took out her wallet and made a show as she drew out a note and smacked it into his hand.

"I don't know how you even see out of those contact lenses." She sniffed.

"I don't." Abe grinned.

"Let's get going, if that smart mouth keeps at it we'll be here all night." The man in the wheel chair grumbled.

"Smart mouth?" Abe protested, catching up to him as they walked on. "Rimor, remind me who got his arse kicked by the flight sergeant for chanting his indiscretions to the national anthem?"

Rimor grinned.

"It's still funny."

Abe rolled his eyes. Rimor glanced across at Vash.

"Who's the new guy? Not one of ours, I don't recognize him."

"Hello!" Vash waved. "I'm Vash the Stampede."

"No way!" Rimor laughed and glanced back at Meryl. "You found him!"

Vash noticed Meryl avoid his curious stare. She was behaving a little oddly around him. He was distracted by Rimor's exclamation.

"Man, I'm glad to meet you! You're a legend."

"Ah? Thank you." Vash laughed and scratched at the back of his neck self consciously.

"More than a legend." Abe said. "He got peppered with angel shot two weeks back, and here he is."

"Do you have any nerves in your body man?" Rimor exclaimed. "It took me four weeks before I could walk around when I got shot in the leg with it."

"It hurts, I won't lie." Vash admitted, playing it down. His back was currently a sea of fire.

"Hurts!" Rimor muttered. "Bloody demon fires it was."

Yes, that was a fair description.

"Goodness me, this can only be three of my stupider friends making all this racket in Terran accents in the middle of a native crowd."

A tall man with his arm in a sling and his head bandaged stood in front of them. He was dressed in a brown duster over a very ragged Terran uniform. Vash had seen his like before. He looked haggard, in the way people did when they suddenly found themselves out in the open and having to fend for themselves after being used to an indoor life. By his sun sunken face and the condition of his clothes it had possibly been a month or two. The man glanced at the crowd of passersby who were slowing to stare.

"Move along, we're harmless." He waved them away.

The people eyed him and moved on, some muttering imprecations against Terrans.

"Mutare!" Abe exclaimed and pranced ahead to shake the man's hand.

The man grabbed his hand then peered up at the Mohawk.

"Someone has taken to this world like a fish to water. You look happy Mora."

"Call me Abe!" Abe corrected.

"Indeed." He glanced back at the group. "I see you also encountered Johnston." He touched his own short-cropped hair that was now completely black.

"I am acquainted with that thrice cursed son of a bitch." Abe muttered.

"By my reckoning he's taken out five of us." Mutare said and fell in among the group as they caught up with them. "I know of three who are in hiding as a result of his torture."

"He's taken eight, as far as we can tell. Ezrah has joined forces with him and has managed to kill three of us so far. What I would dearly love to know is why!"

Mutare shoved his good hand into his pocket.

"Before they got me, I saw the reports the representatives of the Central Earth Government were sending back and forth. They think Johnston is a plant."

"What?" Abe exclaimed. "Why would he do this to his own people?"

"He's a native of No Man's Land, as far as anyone can tell." Mutare said.

"Native?" Abe glanced back. "Vash! How many independent plants were there on your world before we came?"

Vash blinked at him. He shook his head.

"I only knew of Knives and myself. But there may have been others." He fell silent, and looked away into the night. He did not want to think of that.

"There were others." Abe queried. "What happened to them?"

Vash clenched his fist, trying to keep hold of his emotions. He felt a strange blank rage and a terrible sorrow well up around him. His voice came out strangely flat.

"There was only one other I know of, and she was murdered before we were born. I don't think there are any other independent plants, save those that came with the Terrans." He gave them a nod and a half smile then walked on to be alone with his thoughts. He could not even cry. Some things were beyond his tears. He could hear the conversation behind him.

"Before he was born?" Abe whispered, trying to figure out his reaction. "But he was born on one of those Seeds ships… Crap, they murdered his older sister?"

Vash felt a strange jolt of pain lance through him. Rem had never said. Had it been the same plant that bore Knives and him? He had never thought of Tessla in that way. How was it possible for a painful memory to become even more painful? He stared up at the millions of stars crossing the heavens above him.

"No wonder he and Knives are so strange about humans." Abe reasoned his voice full of horror. "They each went to the extreme."

"So he's Vash the Stampede." Mutare remarked.

"Yes!" Abe enthused. "Crazy man. Doesn't fight like a plant at all. Acts human. Fights with a gun. You should have seen him! Hell was I impressed. Don't ever get on his bad side; he can shoot an apple out of a tree an ile away."

"That good?" Mutare murmured.

"Probably better." Meryl remarked.

Vash smiled at her voice, somehow the way she tried so hard around him was a deep comfort.

"Meryl Stryfe!" Mutare exclaimed. "Oh, I suppose you would be here with him around. You're not filming this are you?" He asked in panic.

Abe laughed.

"No. She owns the corporation. She started Fifth Moon that's kept our sorry arses on this planet instead of six feet under it."

"You have my respect ma'am!"

"I'm just going to apologize to Vash." Abe said. "I think I put my foot in it asking him about his dead sister. Tell Meryl what you know, I'll be back now."

.

He took a deep breath as the tall man with the Mohawk fell in alongside him. Abe put his hands into the pockets of his long waistcoat.

"Vash, in addition to my usual abilities as a plant, I'm also an empath. I can sense what you're feeling, and hell, I'm sorry for saying what I did. My condolences to you and your brother, it was disrespectful of me to push you as I did. Could I ask her name?"

Vash blinked. It was strange, he had never thought of his feelings for Tessla to be grief, but that was part of it. He tried to say her name, but could not.

(Tessla.) He managed with a thought.

Abe bowed his head.

They walked in silence. After a while, what the man had said earlier caught his attention.

"You can sense emotions?" Vash murmured awed, that was a beautiful and terrible skill. "How do you cope with it?"

"Much like you do." Abe said, his voice going oddly sad. "Smile because that is better than the alternative. I practice my charm and call peoples better natures to the surface. It helps me and it helps them. For you, I have this, your actions have not gone unnoticed. For all you have lost, you have also gained, your friends, your acquaintances, the plants that you've spoken to. Do you know that I've visited about fifty power plants on this planet in the last six months and every one of them can tell me some silly story about you?"

"Silly stories?"

"Falling off the gantry dead drunk, to land on top of another orb, only to have the engineers chase you out in the morning?"

"Ah." Vash grinned.

"Singing some song about celestial stones or something, most of them can sing that song back to me. You can sing quiet well you know; you've charmed quite a few of our sisters with your voice."

Vash smiled. They walked on a little slower, allowing those behind them to catch up.

"Well if it isn't Granddad Mut." Rimor remarked, wheeling up to Mutare.

"Rimor. Still alive I see. Well, well, you still owe me that bottle of aged bourbon."

"Still alive? Who is pushing a hundred here? What are you now, ninty five?"

"Ninety two." Mutare corrected with particular care. "And I've gathered a mighty thirst, so it had better be the good stuff."

"It will be, for an apparently shoddy world, the people here know how to make excellent whiskey. You know, I think they keep it so shoddy so that no one comes to take the good things they have."

"Good things?" Mutare exclaimed, clearly unable to see any himself.

"Whiskey, fantastic metal crafts, have you seen the manufacturing plants here? The stuff they can get them to turn out, unbelievable. Earth could take a few lessons. Then how they make so little do so much. This planet is a treasure, don't believe those fools who compare it to Earth and call it poor."

Vash smiled, it lifted his heart to know someone else saw the beauty.

"You've gone as native as Abe."

"Can't get the drawl right." Rimor laughed. "But what were you saying about that arsehole Johnston being a plant. I'd happily renounce my own race and be human if he's pissing in our gene pool."

"It's speculation at this stage." Mutare said. "You see, there are no records of Johnston on the system. All us plants have records to monitor them."

Vash caught Mutare's glance in his direction.

"Even you and Knives had records, though yours were compiled retroactively. What happened to Knives, by the way?"

Vash gazed at him slightly panicked, unable to think of anything to say. He did not know what to think about Knives. The revolver on his left hip seemed to increase in weight with every step. He caught the end of Abe's gesture as he drew his finger across his throat. Abe then closed his hand around his left arm and gave it a comforting squeeze. Vash tugged it away self-consciously, feeling oddly happy, sad and confused, all in one mixed up bundle.

"Sorry." Mutare muttered. "Ah, er, well, as I said all plants are monitored. The Terran's usually monitor plants, but that was merely the usual military six month health checkup and the like, but since we landed here the monitoring has eclipsed every area of our lives. It's why Chronica is in so much trouble. Did you hear what happened?"

Vash found himself smiling. He was so relieved she was alive. He would find those twins and bring them back to her.

"Oh yes!" Rimor said gleefully. "Who would have thought it of such a cool collected lady? She turned me down twice!"

Mutare gave him a steady stare then turned to Meryl and continued. Vash glanced down at the woman's earnest face as she absorbed the explanation. Her skin was pale white in the moonlight and her black hair beautiful against it. There was something captivating about the contrast of light and dark as it played over her face.

"You see, normally they would overlook a plant that decided to dally with a human, often nothing comes of it, and the children, if there are any, are usually only telepathic or have weak psychic abilities. They also tend to be neuter. However, there must be something in the air on this world, because any child of a plant, even if they are half-human, tends to have almost equal strength of an independent plant. It is also speculated that they are capable of reproduction. Can you see why the Earth Government is uneasy? This planet is something unusual, and for us plants, perhaps it is something special. But they can't see it, all the humans fear is they have a rival sentient species that is naturally stronger than they are."

Vash marveled. Despite all the terrible things that had lead to their arrival, perhaps the dark destiny that had been following them was in fact a strange grace for plants. Rem had been right, there were greater things at work than anyone could fathom, that open ticket could take them anywhere.

"I wouldn't say rival." Abe speculated. "Look at us, we look human, we have a few extra powers and the like, but for all intents and purposes, we're human. You know how humans made plants to provide for them?" He pulled a wry face. "I think plants made us, not only to be an interface for plants and humans, but to come alongside and live among them. The plants have taken the human idea to its full fruition; we combine and become the best of both."

Mutare stared at Abe, incredulously.

Abe grinned at him.

"It's the only thing that makes sense to me! Why else would human girls look so pretty?" He patted Mutare on the shoulder.

Still watching the shadows and light on Meryl's face, Vash had to agree with that sentiment. Abe continued.

"Really, the only thing holding most of us back is the fact that they live a sixth of our lifespan."

Vash felt his heart rock. That had been a very painful discovery in his late thirties, how short human lives were, a friend he had made fifteen years before had died. He had been an old man, and had died peacefully at seventy. Many of the older generation had begun dying of old age then; they had been the young men and women who had been crew on the ships. It had twisted in his heart how fragile humans were, and how they only had so long.

He found Meryl watching him and felt his heart leap in his chest. How long had he been watching her without realizing he was? He hadn't looked away when he had turned to his own thoughts. He smiled at her. She gave him the oddest stare. It was faintly questioning and hopeful. What was that about? He hastily ran through the entire conversation in his head, then heard the conversation happening as he thought.

"Admit it, Mutare. The only people who have ever thought it odd are the plant engineers back on earth." Rimor said with a grin. "Why else would they have had to run classes on racial stereotyping? We naturally went for the humans." He chuckled. "And if we consider the sheer amount of prejudice they taught us, and look at how humans struggle with the truth and new ideas, I'm not surprised they can't get their heads around it."

"Well, there was this one girl." Mutare mused.

"Ah ha! Now we have it!" Abe laughed. "So tell us about her! C'mon."

Oh no. Vash stopped breathing for a few seconds, and then panted out the shock. Meryl? He had thought he annoyed her. He had been so careful. He did not want another incident like Jessica, or the occasional ones before her. He was hopeless at telling ladies the awkward reality of what he actually was. But Meryl was different. She'd faced the world with him, she knew his life, knew what he was. He felt a terrible fear claw at the pit of his stomach as he recalled the incident where he had almost lost control of himself trying to protect her. No, as beautiful as her skin was and the light and shadows on her face, he could not. Even when she cried. His insides went all soft when she cried, she was so scared that she as not going to see him again that when she met him she cried, and when he left she cried. Oh no. That was a sure sign, wasn't it? She loved him. Loved him so much she let him go. He dug out his glasses and put them on then stared up at the stars as he walked. What had he done? He rapidly thought through his interactions with her. She had joined the NLBC, because of him, that first night was telling enough. He smiled indulgently as he remembered her touch. He jerked his thoughts away. No, that could not be. Then the Fifth Moon Investigations, well he could tell by the name it was because of him. She had been helping the Terran plants because she wanted to help him. What kind of love was that? He was sure it was love, but it didn't seem to be the suffocating romantic love he was afraid it was. He sneaked a glance at her. Damn. She was still watching him and saw him. He felt his cheeks warm. Really? Was that his reaction? Now he felt all self-conscious. Get a grip. Oh man, this was when he really needed Wolfwood around. That priest would be able to set him right. And laugh at him, with him. He needed someone to laugh with him right now. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry. He did not know what he wanted to do. He was exhausted and in pain, and a tiny part of him dreaded the realization that he might be in love.


	25. Chapter 25

_**Chapter 25**_

December Orphanage

Vash took a whiskey bottle from the kitchen pantry, and left a fold of double dollars in its place, then walked out into the moonlight. As exhausted as he was and as sore as his body was, he could not sleep. He walked through the cold night air and pulled his ragged brown cape closer around himself. He crossed the yard of the orphanage to Wolfwood's grave and sat down underneath the cross punisher and rested his head on the tomb. Now that he lay there he did not want to raise his head. But it was his turn to buy a drink. He lifted his head and unscrewed the cap and poured out a glass for Wolfwood and placed it beside the cross carved into the gravestone. He toasted silently to the night skies, then threw back his glass. Ah, yes, that was what he had needed. He closed the bottle and lay his head back on the grave.

"I've got something that will make you laugh." He said with his eyes closed. "Laugh till you cry. I'm in so much trouble now and your help would be good in a fight. 's not my brother this time. Though I don't know where he is. Have you seen him? Is he where you are? Are they treating you well? Have you met Rem?" He felt the prick of tears, and the tickle as they leaked out from under his eyelashes. "I miss you. I miss all who have gone. But you, Wolfwood, I miss you, so bad."

He opened his eyes; they were so thick with tears that the stars were a blur. He blinked. His vision did not clear as more tears came. He lay with his head on the hard stone, as the memories cascaded over him, the laughter, the ragging, the arguments, the way they fought with each other, the way they fought alongside each other, the team they had become. Somewhere in those thoughts, sleep crept up and took him without his being aware.

He woke groggily the next morning as the sun hit his face. His neck cramped as he lifted his head. It felt like he had not moved all night, his whole body was stiff. He blinked dazedly at the hard stone he had used as a pillow. Oh. He had fallen asleep on Wolfwood's grave. The shot glass on the grave was gone. He stared at it where he had placed it. That was a little creepy. He pushed himself into a sitting position and felt something fall down his back. He gave a start and dug in his coat to find out what it was. He turned over the soft square of squishy material. A heat pack? Someone had found him asleep and instead of waking him had dropped a heat pack on his neck? He discovered that that same person had put two thick blankets over him. Had he been so fast asleep that he had not noticed their attentions? He found the whiskey bottle and the two glasses standing neatly on the far side of the cross punisher. Okay. He had his suspicions as to who had done this. He rested his head against the shaft of the cross, and stared up at the sky. What in the world should he do now? His mind was a roaring vortex of possibilities with him standing in the center, the empty space. There were so many ideas, so many options, but no answer came to him. He watched the smoke rising into the blue sky, so thick that they reminded him of the pictures of towering rain clouds he had seen in lessons with Rem so long ago. Smoke? He leaped up and slammed his head against the cross bar of the cross punisher.

"Aaah! Ow! Ow, ow, ow!" Gasping in pain he staggered to his feet and clutched at his head and held onto the large cross, trying to steady himself and his panic. No good panicking.

He left his blankets and whiskey and ran towards the buildings that served as the orphanage. He didn't enter the main building, but instead ran into the church and took the stairs up to the top of the bell tower three at a time. He leaned out of the window in the bell room, and peered out in the dawn light. December was burning, and it looked as though the hills to the north were where the attack was coming from. Then something to the southeast caught his eye. He turned in horror, out some two miles from where the orphanage stood, was a mass of people and tents. But they were not camps for the displaced from December. That was the No Man's Land army. He could see the Fed's flags.

"No. No! Why is this happening?" He called out to the skies. "Why are people suddenly declaring war?"

He fled down the stairs and into the orphanage.

He found Milly helping feed the babies in the kitchen.

"Mister Vash!" She called out. "What's wrong?"

He pulled himself together and smiled at the small faces watching him.

"Livio? Where is his room?"

"I don't know if he'd want to be interrupted this morning, Mister Vash." Milly said blushing slightly. "Why not speak to Abe? He's in the dining hall with Brad's friends."

He was half way through to the dining room by the time he worked out what Milly meant. Then wished he had not, some things were supposed to be private.

He ran through into the dark dining hall, searching among the sleeping figures. Brad sat up, as did a few others as he passed them.

"What's wrong?" Brad asked. His voice roused several more people. He found Abe snoring with his mouth open. The man looked peculiar without his spiked Mohawk; he had tied his striped hair into a ponytail that now splayed across his pillow. Vash crouched down and shook him.

"They're burning December." He did not want to say anything about the army, that would only cause division and panic in such a mixed group.

"What?" Abe yelled and leaped out of bed. Several others hastily climbed out of their blankets and began dressing.

"Shhh!" He hissed at him. "Do you want to frighten the children?"

"Vash, get breakfast started." Brad said. "We're all exhausted. At least we'll all need to eat before we hit the road. And don't panic so much, the people are all out, it is just the city."

"It's just a city?" Abe hissed furiously at him. "It's my damn home!" He suddenly stood still as a shocked expression crossed his face. He tilted his head quizzically to the side and a slow smile of blissful pleasure covered his face.

"It's my home." He blinked dazedly. "I never realized. This is my home now."

"Abe?" Vash asked, worriedly as the man began to cry.

He then began to laugh softly with tears streaming down his face.

"It's been so long since any place has been my home. Leaving the planet you were born on does strange things to the soul."

Vash smiled in empathy. It was why he loved to return to the Seeds ship. There was something about that place that soothed his soul like nothing else.

Abe eyed him.

"You're not a true drifter with that expression." He murmured almost inaudibly. "There is a place for you, even if you cannot stay."

Vash gave an abrupt nod and smiled. The mood he was in he was going to burst into tears right there, and if he did, he did not know if he would ever stop.

"I'm getting breakfast!" Cooking had never been such a welcome distraction.

* * *

Meryl woke up with the scuffle of running feet outside the door. Light was sneaking in through the cracks in the shuttered window. She had only had two hours sleep and her head was thick. Milly had folded the blankets she had slept in so they rested neatly on top of her pack. How did that girl manage to get up so early? She then remembered the night before. She had heard the pace of foot falls in the passage and had recognised them instantly. Vash's walk was as distinctive as Milly's. It had been several seconds before she could pull on her leggings and boots and go after him. She'd paused by the kitchen door, then had slipped back inside to sit on the table in the moonlight as he headed for the grave in middle of the orphanage yard. She would allow him his private grief.

When they had arrived earlier that night, Milly had walked directly over to the cross punisher that stood as his headstone and had stood there sobbing. Meryl had felt her heart break at her friend's pain, and had run out and hugged her friend tightly enough to express her love. Milly had first visited the grave on their return to December, before the NLBC had recruited them. She had stood crying then too, the same heart wrenching tears. She had held on to Meryl as if she were her anchor in the sea of grief, as she did now, but this time there wasn't the same aching bitterness to her sorrow. It was a long slow process for her friend, but Meryl felt that Milly was slowly beginning to come out of the bitter depths of her mourning.

The others had awkwardly clustered near the orphanage door when Melanie, the plump housemother who cared for the children, came out to find out who had arrived now and to check their names against the register. She had been hesitant to allow those not listed in, but the moment she had seen Vash she had gaped at him in wonder, then had shifted people around and made space for them all. She had made sure that Vash had a seat at the table and had heaped food on his plate before anyone else's. They had all collapsed into bed soon after the meal. She had been near falling asleep when she had heard his footfalls, Milly had cried herself to exhaustion and slept the soundly.

It was as she almost fell off the table, jerking awake, that she realised Vash was still out there in the freezing cold night air. It was past midnight as she hurried out to him and found him asleep with his head resting on the tomb. He had placed a full shot glass of whiskey on the grave and she saw his own empty glass curled in his hand. The whiskey bottle had rolled slightly away from his slumped form. She watched as a tear trickled down the side of his face. He was crying in his sleep. She put her hand over her mouth; she did not have the heart to wake him. At least in sleep, there was some chance at healing.

She shook herself at that memory. She had wanted nothing more than to take him in her arms and to kiss away his tears and tell him that everything would be well. But that was just it, she could never protect him, nor be his equal, that was not what he wanted and not what he needed. She had no right to selfishly comfort the sorrow he carried. As much as she admired his determination and loved his gentleness, doing so would only confuse him and drive him from her. No, she had worked it out during the many hours of worry over him in the arduous time before he had faced his brother. The only way to comfort such sorrow was to fight alongside him.

It had come as somewhat of a consolation to discover that, and now that last night had made it very clear that it had been the right decision, she felt comforted. She also felt guiltily relieved. If she were to take that sort of step towards him, offering him love, she would have to accept the uncomfortable truths that went with the kindness, and gentleness that so trussed up her heart. She would have to accept his pain, his sorrow, his wanderlust, and his tormented unending hunt for forgiveness. Worst of all she would have to accept his power. She shuddered at how that alien nature of his petrified her. Even now, years later, she could feel the stricken terror she had felt as he had transformed, even though he was protecting her. She would have to love the demon as well as the angel.

She hung her head, she did not have the courage, and the worst was he knew it. He knew she was afraid of him and she hated that. It was even worse that he had smiled at her and had thanked her for being honest about her feelings. And being Vash, he had deflected them from himself to the entire world. It was as if he had known of her potential to love behind the fear. As the feathers had fallen, shattering her mind with each memory, he had invited her to share in the journey, to embrace plants as her companions as well as the humans she interacted with every day. He had deflected her fear towards love. It had taken a long while for her to work it out, but with the assistance of those at Fifth Moon, she felt she had made a little difference in working out that love.

She heard more scuffles out in the passage outside and realised she was kneeling on her unmade bed with tears wet on her face. What a way to start the day.

"Love and peace." She said to herself as she rubbed her face with the rough blanket, "with determination to hold it together."

She took out her tiny makeup mirror to check her appearance. Good, her red eyes merely looked tired, not as if she had been up most of the night crying. How was it that even though he was a mere hundred yarz away that she missed him more that when he was hundreds of iles gone? She slipped it back into the Prada purse she carried in her pack. She had bought it for herself as a reward right at the beginning of her Bernadelli assignment on Vash. It had become a symbol to her, no matter how insane things became around him, there was the tiny retreat of her feminine self which was all her own. He might never see the changes he had wrought in her thoughts and personality, but she knew the stark difference. Yet, she was still her own person; she still quietly enjoyed the elegant beauty of a luxury purse, and treasured the reminder that she could be a woman in such a dangerous world.

She closed her pack and hurried out of the room. She had eaten so much the night before, but exhaustion made her hungry. There were at least twenty adults and a whole crowd of children sitting squashed around the dining hall tables eating breakfast. Someone had fried rice and, and... She grabbed a plate and heaped as much on as she knew she could possibly eat. She stacked on the toppings and wolfed it down, wiping at the tears as they fell. He had made this. She had tried to replicate the taste and the way he got the rice just so, but somehow it had never tasted like this.

"Wow, Meryl. Are you so hungry?"

"Mmmg!" Meryl sniffed and wiped her eyes as Milly walked in to the dining hall with a tray slung around her neck. She began clearing the dirty plates and stacking them into the tray.

"Are you done?" Milly asked, returning to her after her circuit of the hall, on her way out to the kitchen.

Meryl could not eat another bite, she had cleared the plate.

"Yes. Thank you."

She followed her friend out into the bustling kitchen.

"Do you need some help?"

"Sure!"

She ended up in the scullery drying dishes, which were soon whisked away back to the dining hall as the next people descended on the hall for breakfast. Milly was happily bringing back more dishes from the dining hall, so it was half an hour before Meryl could hang up yet another sodden drying cloth and flex her chapped hands.

She went through to the kitchen and found Melanie there, cooking more food with several other strangers that she did not know. She sidled through the crowd and smiled at the plump woman.

"Have you seen Vash?"

Melanie glanced up at her, surprised. She tucked a tendril of wavy black hair into the scarf she wore on her head.

"Don't you know? They set fire to December this morning, he and the men went out to see what they could do."

Meryl felt her heart sink to her boots. It was the terrible feeling of sand pouring through her fingers. Every time she came close to him, he slipped away. She stumbled through the people in the kitchen and jerked the door open. She felt like her body was not connected to her mind the way she lurched across the yard until she could look east. Standing beside Wolfwood's grave, she could see the towering column of dirty grey smoke, now blowing to the north. She became aware of a crowd of people standing at the gates of the orphanage discussing this very phenomenon. She hurried over when she recognised a woman who could only be Chronica.

The tall graceful woman, dressed in a jumpsuit, with an elegantly tailored duster over it, watched her as she joined them. Meryl was surprised to see how just the sides of her temples had black hair; the rest was as Doug had described it, a beautiful pale blond.

"You've also just heard, have you?" She asked tersely. "Our hot blooded men folk have gone to entertain themselves and left us behind!"

Meryl nodded.

"What are you going to do?" Chronica asked, sizing her up.

It was odd. They knew each other by reputation, having only briefly met once before just after Vash and Knives had flown off. She decided she rather liked Chronica's decisive manner.

"Help them. What else?" She smiled as Chronica frowned at her. "What is your weapon of choice? I have several rifles and…"

Chronica's frown vanished and she laughed quietly.

"I am a plant, and I will fight as a plant, but if you have a pistol, I'd take that as a side arm. Do you think that your friend would mind the possible sacrifice of her truck? It's the only one left; Livio left the keys under his pillow."

* * *

Meryl let Milly drive, as she wanted the reckless speed. They had taken all those who wanted to aid the party. Chronica knew most of them, and between Meryl, Milly and Melanie they could vouch for the skills and steadfastness of the rest. It was late afternoon as they approached the city, and it became apparent that fires were burning out of control in the south quarter. There was a thin guard of Feds, and to Meryl's surprise, Earth Forces at the east gate that waved them down.

Chronica stuck her head out of Milly's window.

"François! You're detaining me!" She imperiously informed the Earth Force guard.

"Chronica?" The guard exclaimed. "We heard you were dead."

"Well clearly, you heard wrong!" She snapped at him. "You would have let our allies in earlier."

"Who would that be, Chronica?" François asked. "You're not exactly Earth Force anymore."

"Because I fell in love with a man?" She asked incredulously. "They can go bury themselves, honestly."

"We're with Fifth Moon Investigations!" Meryl said, speaking out of the passenger window, as the Feds crowded around them. "We're gathering information on the plants fighting inside here. And you know there are several. Either we go in and you get your information, or we stay out here and your superiors get angry when we mention you in our reports."

There was a pause.

"Prove it."

Meryl handed down her business card.

They inspected it, then handed it back.

"You're to report to Captain Talit in the Federal Offices on Bourbon Street."

"You're letting them in?" François exclaimed as the Feds pulled the gates open.

"She's with him." Meryl heard as Milly drove forward.

"Who?"

"Vash the Stampede. And I ain't pissing off his girlfriend no way."

Meryl cringed at the incredulous stares she could see in the side mirror. It was not like that in any way or form, but sometimes misapprehensions helped.

They had not intended to report to Captain Talit, but the roads had been barricaded, and Bourbon Street was as far as they could go in the truck. Meryl leaped out of the truck as an officer walked over to investigate.

"Fifth Moon Investigations…" She began.

The man's eyes widened and his smile grew.

"She's here! They've come!" He called to those in the office. "Meryl Stryfe and Fifth Moon!"

"What?" Meryl said, bewildered.

They were issued into the Marshall's office and stood in a group by the door as the tall man with broad shoulders and a beefy neck walked over, looking haggard but relieved.

"We're so pleased you've come!" He said. "There are at least two independent plants in the city, creating havoc, nothing like the chaos Vash the Stampede and Millions Knives did, but they are wrecking the place! Have you anyone among you who can fight them?"

"I can." Chronica said coolly. "And I require my task force to remain with me. Could you have some of your men escort us to where we are needed?"

The Feds loaned them a jeep and gave Meryl the directions, but could not spare any men to go with them, they were too busy defending the walls from the attacking humans. Meryl drove through the devastated city, feeling a sharp wrench of pain as they drove down their street and found the lovely bakery only a collapsed pile of rubble. Fifth Moon Investigations was not looking much better with all its windows blown in.

"There!" Chronica called, pointing.

Meryl glanced down a side street as Milly slammed on the breaks, reversed and turned down it. At the far end they found Livio with Brad and several others, crouched behind a pile of rubble exchanging fire with an equally trapped group of Terrans on the far side of the road.

"How did you know they were there?" Milly asked in amazement as they brought the truck to a halt.

"I always know where Livio is." Chronica smiled at her, then hopped out of the jeep and lifted what Meryl had assumed to be a bazooka from the stash of weapons they had loaded into the back. Except this had AGL Pulsar stamped into the side of it. She did not recognise the make, and supposed it was Terran. Livio turned and smiled at her then his eyes widened the size of saucers when he saw what she was carrying.

"Crap, Chronica, you're not setting that thing off in the city, there will be nothing left!"

"It's better that there be nothing, than Johnston gets the power plants."

"Where is Vash?" Meryl asked, ducking down to join them in the small bunker area they had created behind the rubble.

"We last saw him by the power plant station." Brad pointed to the south east, where the curved hull of the ship was still visible over the tall skyscrapers.

"Let's go." Chronica said.

"A moment." Livio interjected. "What if I create a diversion down in the north east. You'll want to wedge yourselves around the station to defend it. It'll draw the Terran's to us and give you an opening."

Chronica nodded and Livio's smile broadened wickedly.

"It'll be our pleasure. Brad, let's leave these boring sods and go and find us some real entertainment!"

* * *

The suns were slowly setting, and the pale moons were visible in the evening sky. Meryl absently glanced at the Fifth Moon as she often did without thinking. The crater had become oddly comforting, as much as he hated it, it was his mark and she treasured it. She was perched on the top of a three-story building, beside Milly, and she watched the surrounding buildings for snipers. Her partner had her stun gun and was busy covering Chronica's back as she and five of the men sneaked across to the power plant. They were near the southern most entrance on the eastern wall, and she trained her binoculars over it, watching for the Terrans who might have gained the wall. She almost dropped her binoculars in shock as she recognised a tall figure in a distinctive red duster, with its tails flaring out behind him in the evening wind. He stood high on the wall over the gate waving a white flag, no, wait, that looked very much like her own white cape. Had he kept it all this time? No, there was no time to think of that now! What was Vash doing, waving a white flag, er cape? He wasn't surrendering was he? She felt panic slick her back with sweat. That would be just like him. Did he think the Terran's would leave the people in peace? Had he seen what they had done to the plants they were after? Hell, he had spent time in their company and he had heard the stories they had told about Johnston.

She then saw the floating car soar up from among the Terran Tanks. Ah, so that was what he had been signalling. He lowered the cape and waved in a friendly fashion. The car came near enough the wall for her to see the people in it. She ground her teeth in fury. Johnston was among them, dressed in that distinctive hat and coat. She wanted to grab his throat and throttle him, no, she wanted to hand him over to Abe and Calor they would find far more inventive punishments.

Vash seemed to be talking animatedly. The Terrans replied with a few terse replies. Vash nodded enthusiastically. She watched as the car floated away from the wall. Vash slouched slightly as if in relief and walked away. She felt her heart leap, had he negotiated come kind of cease fire? She trained the binoculars on him; he was smiling as far as she could make out. She felt her spirits lift; he knew how to sue for peace. She then heard a rapid rapport of gunfire, and watched in horror as his face twisted in agony and he staggered. Odd white flames encased him; it was as though he were on fire. She felt her breath catch in her throat. What had Johnston shot at him? He caught himself on the wall, slumping against it, his face a rictus of agony. Then another bullet caught him in the back and a strange white glow engulfed him as he fell off the wall. She was drawing back the range of the binoculars as it happened. Johnston held the gun with a firm look of determination on his face.

"Nooooo!" She screamed.

"Meryl!" Milly released her stun gun and clamped her hand over her partner's mouth.

"Milly!" Meryl struggled free. "They shot Vash! He fell from the wall!"

"What?"

Meryl abandoned her post and ran for the stairs, her mind in a dazed blur. She reached the ground floor as two of the men who had gone with Chronica joined them.

"What happened?" They demanded, searching for their attacker.

"They shot Vash!" Milly declared.

They glanced at each other.

"Go to him!" One declared. "We will guard Chronica."


	26. Chapter 26

_**Chapter 26**_

Meryl ran. Milly kept pace with her, but they did not get far. Meryl ducked behind a building as a barrage of gunfire warned them of an entrenched group of Terrans. A sharp whistle sounded and she looked up. Livio waved from an upper floor window then took shots from where he stood and slipped into the shadows again as bullets bit into the wall he hid behind. She and Milly made their way into the building.

"Where's Chronica?" Livio demanded as they joined him and Brad, and the three men who were sniping the Terran's below.

"Guarding the power plant with that weird bazooka of hers." She took a deep breath to calm herself. "Livio, they shot Vash." It came out all wobbly and ended in a sob so she could hardly say his name.

Livio gaped at her.

"Where?"

"He fell from the wall." Meryl managed between worried hiccups. "Johnston shot him."

Livio's face settled into an eerie fury.

"Don't kill anyone." He murmured in a soft purr of loathing hatred. "Ooh damn, do I want that man alive so he can answer for his crimes!"

"Don't kill anyone?" One of the men turned to Livio in astonishment. "But this is a war! What are you on about?"

"That was _his_ way." Milly explained and hefted her stun gun. "I shall follow it. How say you?"

.

Livio took them back to Chronica, Meryl was bitterly disappointed, but then realized why. The plant brought out a street map of the city.

"I know Terrans and how they attack." Chronica explained as Livio outlined the situation and how the gate area was blocked off. "Do it this way. I will fire one warning shot at the city gate with my cannon. It will be enough to engage the army. They will split up into guerilla groups once in the city and snipe you. Stay off the streets, but you people from December, you know your city so you will know the best vantage points." She peered at the map for a long moment, then tapped various areas. "These are the suspected strong holds, from what I can sense of where people are in the city. If you avoid them, you might just have the chance at finding his body. This will sound awful, but if he is dead, leave him, do not endanger yourselves. Our priority is to guard these power plants, understood?"

Meryl followed Livio back into the city, her ears ringing with Chronica's last words. There would be no way she would ever leave his body to be taken by the enemy. She saw the strategic sense in them, but was not currently listening to her mind. She wiped away tears as there was a flash of light and a thunderous boom. She jumped and clutched at Milly as the tall woman grabbed her. They both knew that sort of light. Meryl hated how every time she saw any plant use their power it sent waking flashbacks through her mind of July. The horror she felt, the searing panic at being unable to stop herself. She staggered along trying to deal with the pain of loss and anguish at having caused such destruction as the memory twisted through her mind.

"It is not your memory. It is not your emotions!" She gasped to herself, but even telling herself that did no good. It was strange to her that her desperation to reach him as he had fallen was the one thing that drew her out of the anguish he had dumped in her mind. She followed Milly's tall form until she could manage to master herself enough to take in her surroundings once more. The attack has destroyed the gates and wall disintegrated as they approached. The Terran's holding it on the inside scattered. Livio darted forward and they followed him, trying to clamber across the rubble as fast as they could before they had to duck for cover.

After several minutes of fire fight, they managed to get within five hundred yarz of the gates. The place was a mess of collapsed buildings and rubble. In the failing light they ran out among the ravines made by the rubble and loose chunks of masonry, searching among it for the sign of a red coat. Meryl looked up at the gate. He had been standing about there, and had walked perhaps fifty yarz to the north, so just a bit further.

"Looking for his body?"

Meryl bit back a scream of terror as a Terran man stepped out in front of her, his face covered by a bandanna. Yet he had a No Man's Land accent. She stared in horror as she recognized him, the hat, the coat, and his terrible empty eyes mostly hidden in the shadow under the hat brim.

"Johnston?"

Behind him, she saw other people also searching the rubble. No! They could not find him first!

Johnston faced her with ruthless hatred.

"So you are the source of all the trouble."

"Me?" Meryl exclaimed incredulously. "Just look at yourself!"

Johnston ignored her outburst.

"I had your contract nullified at the NLBC because while you filmed him, you refused to show his violent nature."

"What?" Meryl breathed in shock, what had Johnston to do with the NLBC? She glared at him; he had obviously been reading all the No Man's Land propaganda about him. "Vash isn't like that!"

"Not? He has destroyed three cities –"

"That last one was your Terran's doing!" Meryl growled, furiously.

"Ah, so you were there too." Johnston mused. "Pity you survived. Pity you had a soft spot for that murderer, and a pity that he is not here now to save you." He took out a gun from his pocket, and Meryl's heart sank as they recognized it as Vash's personal revolver. She wanted to snatch it out of his evil hands. Johnston spun it around his finger, catching the stock expertly.

"Odd this gun." He mused. "Heavy, and an unusual barrel alignment, but it reduces the muzzle flip, I suppose." He pointed it at Meryl. "You've ruined every plan I made."

Milly raised her stun gun and fired in one fluid movement. The claw missed Johnston as he dodged, answering any question they had as to if he were a plant or not. But he got his shot off. Meryl felt something heavy thud into her chest and throw her backwards. The air was slammed out of her lungs and she smacked her head on the debris on the ground. She gazed up at the stars in the sky. The fifth moon just in her line of sight. She felt no pain and her mind drifted, she couldn't move. The crater. Oh Vash…

From somewhere distant she heard gunfire and the thump of Milly's stun gun going off again and again. There were cries of alarm and she felt someone touch her face. Water splashed on her face. Tears dropped onto her skin and ran down the side of her cheek. She felt a kiss on her lips and groggily forced her eyes open, who the hell was taking such liberties with her? She couldn't find the energy to even make a fist to punch them. A face swam into view before her eyes drooped shut again, a battered face with a black eye and dark hair. No, not that face, that face made her tear up inside with sorrow. She wanted her memory of Vash to be the determined smile he had given her before running out of the Fifth Moon offices.

* * *

Meryl opened her eyes, listening to the steady beat of the heart rate monitor. Milly shifted from where she had sat in the chair beside her bed. She gave a soft gasp of pleasure.

"You're awake!" She breathed.

Meryl gazed at her from between scrunched up eyelids. Her head was throbbing and the lights hurt. She could feel a dull pain that throbbed in time to her heartbeat coming from her shoulder. The smell of disinfectant was dim, but sharp against her shallow breaths. Her back hurt, and she made the mistake of moving her head producing explosions of pain all over her chest. She whimpered and closed her eyes.

"Oh Meryl!" Milly sobbed. "They said you were going to die!"

She squeezed her friends hand.

"I'm fine now, Milly." She whispered her voice hoarse from disuse.

Milly dissolved in tears beside her bed.

"I thought I had lost everyone, Mister Priest, Mister Vash and now you!"

Meryl felt her throat catch and screwed her face up as the crashing reality returned to her.

"Vash."

Milly clutched at her hand, appalled that she had upset her friend.

"Did they find his body?" She managed after a raw silence.

"No." Milly said sadly. "We found his coat," she added with a little enthusiasm, and then her face crumpled. "It was all torn, and there was so much blood."

Meryl fell back, faint. He was dead. No. He was Vash the Stampede. He would not die from falling off a wall and being shot! He had survived far worse. However, they had only found his coat, so perhaps the Terran's had his body, which was almost as bad. Had him. He was not dead. He could not be dead.

"Oh, sorry. Sorry." Milly sobbed. Meryl managed to muster up enough strength to squeeze her hand.

"I'll tell the nurse you are awake."

"Milly!" She called as she heard her friend leave the hospital room.

"What is it?" The tall girl turned, eager to be of assistance to make up for her slip.

"How long have I been here?"

"We got here yesterday evening. They took you straight into surgery."

All Meryl could remember was a hazy blur of colour and sound and pain. She remembered Milly clutching at her hand and trying to fight the effects of the painkillers to talk to people. She had wanted to know where Vash was, and for some reason no one would answer her. They must have sedated her as all she recalled were confused half dream like memories and intense frustration at not receiving an answer.

"Where is here?" She asked feeling a slight creep of shame at what must have been some spectacular tantrum behavior from her.

"The hospital on the Seeds ship. Miss Luida said we were to bring you here. Apparently the only reason you survived was because of the doctors here."

"Was it that bad?" She asked, as it slowly dawned on her that she could have died.

"I don't know. There was a lot of blood." Milly wrung her hands. "I thought you had been shot through the heart. They said the bullet missed anything vital." She then gave Meryl a forlorn look. "I tried to shoot Mister Johnston, but he moves like Mister, er, like, um."

"He's a plant." Meryl murmured.

"Yes." Milly was looking more miserable by the second. "He escaped, no one could catch him."

"Ah." Meryl contemplated this gravely, and winced, her hand going up to her bandaged shoulder. Ugh! It had a drip in it and moving it caused her skin to shift against the needle. She put her hand back down carefully, trying to distance herself from the discomfort.

"I'll call the nurse." Milly scuttled out.

Abe put his head around the door as Milly hurried out, the spikes of his mowhawk preceding him. Meryl watched him saunter across the room to her; he wore a dark grey knee length coat with reinforced elbows and shoulders. Underneath it he wore a shirt and a maroon waistcoat, the neck of his shirt tied with a black cravat.

"Good to see you awake."

She did not know now to respond, she half felt she would rather be dead. In his somber clothes, Abe was already dressed for the funeral. He sat down beside her.

"Meryl, I need you to tell me something, and it is probably going to be painful, and I'm sorry."

She closed her eyes.

"I wouldn't ask this of you, but we have so little information, and Milly says you saw Vash fall. Did he have white flames around him?"

Meryl's eyes snapped open.

"Yes!" She exclaimed then caught Abe's grave expression. "That's not good?"

Abe shook his head slightly.

"No. It's uncontrolled gate energy."

He raised a hand and for a second Meryl saw the same strange white flame flicker across it, then vanish. Abe closed his fist.

"It was just like that. Only all over him." She whispered. "Then it went all white when he fell off the wall."

Abe blinked.

"Abe!" She scolded as he turned away. "What are you thinking? What do you know?"

"Meryl, you know how they say plants have a 'last run?'"

"No!" She exclaimed. "He's alive! He won't die by just being shot!"

"Everything dies in its time." Abe said softly. "Even us plants."

"He is not dead!"

Abe lightly patted her shoulder.

"He knew you loved him."

She closed her eyes and turned her head away, unable to deal with the anguish. She did not hear him leave or the nurse and Milly return.

Meryl lay dopy with painkillers and tried to work out how she felt. Right now, she felt uncomfortable in the bed. She could only lie on her back, when she tried to lie on her side her chest hurt too much. Her body was healing, slowly. That was a small part of her, the physical reality of discomfort and pain. If only that were the only pain she had. In a way, it was so encouraging to hear the doctors tell her how well she was doing each day. In another, she hardly cared, and wondered if they might be lying to her. She did not feel like living. However, the option of simply giving up and leaving her body to Milly to bury was too terrible to contemplate. She could not forget the anguish in her best friend's eyes as she had cried about almost losing everyone. She had to live, for Milly.

That meant she had to deal with the other pain, the more destructive pain of her emotions. If she thought about it with cool logic, she felt a vast relief. If Vash was dead, she could love his memory. No strings attached, and it would be beautiful and peaceful. She heard the heart rate monitor splutter out the way her heart jerked and fluttered at the overload of agony. The nurse hurried in and added some sedative to her drip. It was several hours of strangely disturbed, tormented drifting before she could clearly return to the same thoughts.

She tried to remain calm amid the sea of terrible anguish, now at war not only with her natural desire to avoid pain, but also with the irksome heart rate monitor.

"He is dead; he'll never know that I loved him so deeply." She mouthed at the ceiling. Despite what Abe had said, she had never said it in so many words to him. Now she saw how foolish that had been. In that moment, she saw Vash in her mind's eye, with that heartbreaking gentle smile on his face. She felt the tears tickle as they fell down her cheeks. It made him look so beautiful and so sad. It almost reminded her of a mistakenly kicked puppy except she now knew the mind behind those eyes she knew he missed nothing. He chose to be the puppy, forgiving the kick in hope of a gratifying reconciliation. She had flinched away from that expression once, and now regretted it so bitterly. It had been before Knives had raised the ark. He had been as confused and terrified as she had, and he had been the stronger one, reaching out to her asking her to lend him strength. She had reacted instinctively, pulling away from him when all he needed from her was a smile. She had been too weak, overwhelmed by the eerie reality of what he was and his terrible memories of July, that all she could do to preserve her sanity was to flee from him.

She no longer cared that the heart rate monitor gibbered and beeped. She put her hands over her face and cried out her heartbreak. The nurses came in and she felt oddly woozy, and fell asleep still crying.

.

She woke with Milly sitting in the chair beside her. Her partner was asleep with her head on the bed beside her, her hand curled around hers as she slept. She felt such a surge of love for the girl. Milly had been through all this, but had been brave enough to confront the man she loved. As complex as Wolfwood had been, he had been far more honest about his feelings. That broom headed scoundrel on the other hand had lied and then lead her on at every turn. She mulled over what he had said to her at May City when she and Milly had walked in on him shirtless. "This stuff's not meant for the tender eyes of ladies. They'd just run away!" Gah! Just thinking about that made her blood boil in fury and her knees go weak with devotion. She had not known him well enough then, to know just how intelligent he was, and how gentle and how soft hearted he truly was. She had known these things intellectually, but she had never considered that his emotional intelligence would match his intellect. He was so in tune with people he could choose how to come across so as to provoke a specific reaction. He didn't always get the reaction he desired as he could not control the mind of another, but he always started off in the right place. She pondered that; she knew what Knives, Abe and Chronica were capable of, just how powerful was he? Could he have controlled the mind of another had he so desired? Well it was mere speculation now, and besides it was not in his nature to do anything of the sort.

Um. She glumly considered the outcome. She had told him bluntly that ladies would not run away, and his opinions were not true. Oh man, she had not been aware of her own feelings, blurting that out so blatantly. What had he thought of her? They had both clumsily propositioned each other, and somehow she had missed it, and he'd known. Ack. Why had it taken her so long? Think of all the wasted moments. The terrible memory of July roared through her mind and she collapsed into dazed tears as she felt the agony lance through her, and then that tentative expression on his face as he had reached out to her. The pain in his smiling eyes as he had withdrawn from her flinch. No, they both knew what the other felt, and there was too much baggage between them. She cried then, remorse wrapping around her like a thick smothering blanket.

.

It was two weeks later when Milly had made her aware of how she appeared to others.

"Meryl?"

Meryl blinked at her.

"I've been calling you for the last half an hour." Milly rested her chin on her hand and smiled. "I'm so glad you can hear me now."

Meryl felt her heart go icy in her chest. She tried to remember what she had been thinking about, but it was like a thick fog of unreality had settled over her mind. Like a dream, only her thoughts had been of nothing.

"Milly." She whispered, worried. "What have I been doing?"

"Sleeping mostly." Milly said encouragingly.

"What else?"

"Well." Milly murmured awkwardly. "You are awake, but you either are crying or staring blankly up at the ceiling. Mostly you know that I'm here, but you don't do more than say 'hello'."

"Sorry Milly." Meryl grabbed her hand and the tall woman gave her an encouraging nod.

"When I was grieving, at least I could work to take my mind off it. I know why you hide; it would be easier if you could get back to work."

"Oh Milly."

Meryl had sat that evening, after lights out, seriously considering her options. She had been unaware that in her inactivity she zoned out, captive to the many powerful memories that plagued her. That was why she worked so hard, work gave her an outward focus, and it took her out of the clinging trap her own mind could become. Once aware of what she was doing, falling back onto dangerous mind disassociations she had adopted to cope as a young teenager, she forced her mind into present and real activity.

She spent her waking hours talking to people who came into her ward, listening to their stories and as a game to keep her entertained, rating where she would put them on the rating scale Bernadelli used. Most were rather neutral, requiring only the usual life insurance. But there were a few, Jessica for example, who would rate higher for her innate clumsiness.

They let her walk around the ward and the visitors lounge. Milly spent her days with her, as did Jessica when she could take time off from her job. At the end of the third week, as a treat, Milly took her around the ship in a wheel chair to see new sights. They both ended up in the cold sleep chamber, staring out at the rows of people still comatose. Meryl was both pleased and saddened that Milly had brought her here of all places. It was quiet and good for contemplation, and was a place he loved. Somehow, that broke her heart and cheered her up at the same time.

That week she left the hospital, but stayed on the ship, under observation. Meryl felt rather guilty about the observation part; no wonder the psychiatrists did not trust her to wander off into her own mind with the scare she had given them all. Luida and others interviewed her and as part of the 'observation program', she wrote reports on the incident without her usual dread of them. They were wonderful as they distracted her from thinking. However, the last report took an entire week to write. It was agony every word she set down made her feel as though she were losing him all over again.

Milly found her curled up in her bed, her face wet with tears, hugging her pillow against the anguish.

"Oh Meryl."

As painful as it was, it was a triumph. She had not left reality to escape, she had faced every awful second of it. She could feel her heart was becoming stronger.

.

Returning to December and the offices on the outskirts of the city was a peculiar experience. Half of the city was in ruins, but in her month of absence, rebuilding had started. The city still had working power plants and thousands of people relied on the infrastructure the city provided. The baker opposite them had set up a tin shack and had begun trading once more, while around his shack, the clearing work continued. Most of the staff at Fifth Moon put in a regular half days work on the rubble clearing crews, though such work was unpaid, Meryl could see the fierce camaraderie it built among those who did it.

The complex housing her tiny flat had not been badly damaged; it was two minutes walk up from the office, which now seemed an eternity. Her health was slowly improving and she measured this by how exhausted she felt after that stupidly short walk. Abe had taken one look at her and had put her on half days on the pretext that she still tired easily. Although she suspected the reason was she still could not get through an entire day without crying. She watched the people and plants who worked for the company come and go their chatter and interaction iles away from where her barren planet orbited its now dead star.

"Miss Meryl!"

Milly thumped her hand on top of the paperwork Meryl was dealing with, making her jump. It broke Milly's heart to see her small partner shudder as she reengaged with reality. Her eyes travelled up Milly's arm to face the stern yet excited expression.

"Miss Luida has a very important request for us! She says it is most urgent. Chronica and Livio will meet us there."

"What?"

"Get your cape and don't forget your derringers. We've got an emergency with a rogue plant on the Outer, and the reports say it is Johnston!"

Milly smiled as Meryl's eyes blazed with an energy they had long lacked.

"Right." She stood up.

"And you will need to pack your bags for at least two weeks of travel without any laundry facilities."

"I can pack my own bags, Milly." Meryl eyed her wryly then hurried out of the room.

Milly raised her hand and watched as the paper wrinkled in spots on the report. The tears were soaking into the paper. Most of the time Meryl was her usual self, driven, hard working and full of spirit. Yet, when she was alone, where she thought no other saw, it was as if her partner became a mechanical doll with glass eyes. Present in body but her soul wandered the bleak plains of pain and memory, not allowing it to see the vibrant life all around her. She hoped that this task Luida had for them would allow Meryl to begin to slowly heal her broken heart; she needed something big to put her energies into and to ease her mind off her sorrow.


	27. Chapter 27

_**Chapter 27**_

Along with the other staff at Fifth Moon, Milly had put all her attention into trying to find the twins and Teres, but aside from the tracks leading north west out into the desert there was no other lead. A sand storm had obliterated the trail before they had gone two hundred iles. The Feds and the Earth Force had been combing the desert, but aside from loosing patrols to the sand worms and the hive mind, they were no further on the hunt for Johnston. She prayed that the report on Johnston Luida had summoned them for could help them. They needed help. Almost two months of useless searching and waiting on tenterhooks was beginning to take its strain on all of them.

"What happened to Lina's truck?" Meryl asked as Milly, Abe and Calor walked up to the tomas stables near the city gates.

"Livio returned it to her." Milly explained. "He and Chronica have been searching through towns hunting for any word on Johnston, Ezrah or the twins."

It was going to be a long journey if they had to take the whole way on tomas back. But after ten minutes in the saddle, Meryl was in part hating it, and at the same time very glad it was a long journey. Being shot had taken its toll on her body. She was dreadfully unfit and needed the time to regain her former strength. For the first time since being released from hospital and the drug induced sleep, she slept the entire night through out of sheer exhaustion, free of the nightmares that plagued her.

The tomas that Meryl rode was a placid animal, and no amount of encouragement with her heels could get it to move any faster than Milly's. They went at a fast trot, across the empty desert sands. Abe, she had been amused to discover, rode terribly. Calor who claimed she had ridden horses on Earth, likened the tomas's gait to riding ostriches, though without the awful sensation of almost falling off the back of them. Abe had walked bow legged for days and had darkly renamed his tomas 'Emperor Nero' then had explained in rather gratuitous detail the depravities of the tomas's namesake around the campfire that night. She and Milly had listened in awe, they knew a little history of Earth, but history classes at school had mostly been about the politics and troubles of No Man's Land. Since then Abe had related what he knew of Earth's history, Calor would butt in every so often, mentioning points he left out or curbing his more bloodthirsty descriptions of battles, which he seemed to relish.

Corchie

The two weeks went so swiftly, yet dragged so slowly. They arrived at the small town of Corchie, with only one plant supporting the place. By the fields and herds of tomas's, they passed before entering the town proper; farming was its main industry. The message Luida had sent directed them here. They found lodging in a hotel on the main street and Meryl indulged in a long soak in the bath before changing into fresh clothing. She checked her appearance in the mirror, staring sadly at herself. Riding into town, she had recalled too starkly, how she and Milly had spent those years travelling the Outer. She put the men who had accompanied them out of her mind, no need to drag sorrow into an already tense situation.

Milly was sitting on the railing on the boarding house veranda smiling contentedly out at the town.

"All the fields remind me of my home." She said happily. "I haven't been home since we started at the NLBC." She reflected softly.

Meryl leaned against the post holding up the veranda roof. "Do you still send home the Milly Monthly?"

"Of course!" Milly smiled. "They were very happy that they had a permanent address to write to, but since Johnston caused all the trouble post has been delayed." She glanced at her. "Have you written recently?"

Meryl sighed and leaned against the post. The last letter from her uncle had been that her father had finally died of cirrhosis. She had visited him eight months ago, and he had on occasion recognized her, but mostly not. It was a mercy, she supposed; he had been mourning the death of her mother for twelve years now, and was finally at peace. She held her breath to try cope with how much it hurt.

"What happened?"

She glanced up at Milly.

She smiled, too tired of sad things to discuss them.

"I haven't written recently."

Milly gazed at her, but with her usual grace, did not pry. Meryl loved her for that, the quiet support she gave despite not knowing why it was needed. She would write, she decided, her uncle would expect it; for all practical intents and purposes, he had been the recipient of the mail she had sent home. Had her father been able to read in the last months? Her uncle had been the one who had laughed uproariously when she had told the family of her assignment to the Outer, and the purpose of it. The rest of the extended family had simply fussed dismayed at how dangerous her assignment had been. Her father had already been drunk, and had loudly shouted them down, saying that his daughter was the bravest girl on the planet and would kick that no good outlaw's arse from here to the farthest moon. She had had to explain she was not after the bounty, but even on her last visit, her father still asked her if she had caught that no good outlaw.

Her uncle had a better understanding of the situation. The last thing he had said to her as she had left had been bothering her slightly.

"When you do catch that man, I want to meet him."

She had rolled her eyes in exasperation and explained yet again that she was not a bounty hunter, as the family seemed to have recast her in her absence. Now that she thought on it, the look her uncle had given her had been a more knowing one. Damn. He had seen right through her. How was she the last person on the entire planet to know that she honestly loved Vash the Stampede? She grabbed her hair in frustration and groaned.

"Miss Meryl?"

She blinked at Milly.

"I have to write home." She said bleakly. "And tell them, tell them that he is gone." Her voice broke.

Milly hugged her and Meryl tried to draw strength from her friends comfort.

"When Mister Priest died, it was the only time I sent just one letter to everyone." Milly said softly. "They were all so sad. They all loved him so much; they sent me such comforting replies."

Meryl closed her eyes. Milly had a family who took the time to write back to her. Except for the occasional update from her uncle, she had never received any mail from her family. Thinking of those replies made her wish she had the same relationship, just this once. No, that was not how it happened in the Stryfe household. You looked after yourself, because no one else was going to do it for you.

.

They had been three days in the little town, enough time to find the best café, bar and where to get the laundry done. Livio and Chronica were due to arrive within the week, and they took shifts keeping watch on the main street. Luida's contact was a small thin man with a pale skin, and on learning that Chronica and Livio were still to arrive, had promised to tell them the details when they were all together. This had infuriated Abe, who had spent the better part of an hour arguing with him. The man had been polite, and had explained that Luida had her reasons. Meryl watched Abe now, on the other side of the bar, nursing a gin and tonic and scowling at the wall. She had never seen that side of him before; he was usually charming to a fault.

Milly would be watching the street and Calor was out exploring the town. Meryl could not quite get her head around the idea that Calor thought No Man's Land 'quaint' and would explore and stare at things as if they were novelties. It made her wonder what Earth had been like that the Terran's reacted in the various ways they did. She had no desire to visit Earth, even if that were possible, this was her home, and more importantly, it was _his_ home. She traced her finger around the top of the glass of cider she had ordered. She had yet to drink any, she had thought Abe would have wanted companionship, but he had been so furious in his sulking that she had retreated to watch him.

No, she could not imagine Vash being interested in any other place; he had lived and bled for these people. She smiled feeling oddly comforted at that sadness. The whole planet was his home, and he loved it so strongly that he would pine and die if he left. No, he would not pine, but he would be miserable, as miserable as she would. She put her head in her hands as the realization then struck her. It had been true for so long she did not know when it had become true. Why was she so disconnected from her heart that she did not know herself? She loved this dry wasteland; it was home, the whole of it, not just her flat in December. Damn that man. Damn him, that wonderful, awful man, Vash the Stampede. He had made a wanderer out of her, if not necessarily in body, but in her heart.

"You!"

Meryl jumped as Abe's voice startled everyone in the bar. Several patrons glared at him, some mopping spilled drinks with calculating scowls on their faces. Most had sized Abe up as a sullen soul not to be confronted. Abe leaped from his chair and sprinted out of the bar.

"Hey!" The bar keeper called after him. "You haven't paid!"

Meryl got to her feet, hastily slipped a bill out of her pocket, and pushed it across to the bar.

"Oh, thanks miss. You with him? Keep an eye on him miss, he looks to be starting a fight!"

Outside in the street Abe was yelling at another man. Meryl ran. Abe grabbed his opponent by the shirt and growled so harshly at him, that the other man was gaping at him in horror. Meryl grabbed Abe and tried to push in between them.

"I'll pound you to a pulp with my bare hands, no power needed!" Abe spat, he was so angry he had reverted to his natural Terran accent.

"Leave him Abe! What did he ever do to you?"

There was a silence and she was surprised when her pushing suddenly made an effect. Both men separated.

Abe's face was a picture of incredulity. Meryl scowled at him.

"You're horrible on gin." She scolded.

"I never had a sip!" Abe declared, still trying to piece together his expression into something other than astounded disbelief.

Meryl turned to the other man.

"Sorry about him, he…" She faltered.

Standing, staring down at her, with bemusement in his green eyes, was Vash the Stampede. She felt shock kill her senses. Everything went a strange grey, and she could hear an odd ringing in her ears. All she could see for several heartbeats were his eyes. She felt someone put an arm around her shoulders. They were talking to her, but she could not hear them. A horrible falling sensation claimed her.

When she came to her senses, she was lying on her bed in the boarding house. Someone had put a cool compress over her forehead. Ow. Her head was pounding. She checked the time, nine in the evening. No one else was in the rooms; they would probably be in the bar. She then felt a flush of adrenaline flow through her. Had she dreamed it, or had she seen Abe pick a fight with Vash? Or had that been some sadistic dream cooked up by her fragile mind? What had happened after that? Why was she lying on her bed fully clothed? Oh no? She had not fainted had she? Had she hit her head to be out cold for so long? Her head certainly pounded hard enough for that. But was it true? Or had it been a dream?

She sat up trying to ignore how badly her head hurt and pulled on her boots. She hurried out of the boarding house and down the street to the bar. The noise and the music certainly indicated a party of exceptional magnitude was happening. She put her fingers in her ears, trying to stop the pounding music from making her brain throb in time to the rhythm. She pushed through the swing doors and looked around. She found Milly first, or was it Abe; the two were dancing as partners in an impromptu line dance. She laughed; Abe did not have a clue, but went where the other dancers shoved him, chortling at how awful he was. Calor was sitting at a table to her left, charming several young men. Meryl wondered what those young men would do if they knew the youthful lithe women they were pursuing was past fifty. Ow, but the music hurt her ears. There by the far table she had occupied earlier in the evening sat Kail, Luida's contact. He was watching Abe's antics and clearly trying not to laugh.

Someone tapped her on the shoulder.

"Oh, sorry." She took her fingers out of her ears and stepped aside so that the person could get out of the door. The red coat sleeve caught her eye and her stomach plummeted. She whipped her eyes up, taking in the duster tales, the buttons, the broad shoulders; she managed to reach his pointed nose, before panic gripped her. Without thinking, she turned and hurled herself through the doors. She heard an 'oof!' as they caught him on the rebound.

She ran down the road, her mind in a crazy panic. She could not take this right now, not after two months of believing him dead and his body captured by Johnston. She reached the outskirts of the village and walked with an odd skipping gait, which was all she could manage of a run, as she followed the road out into the night. She eventually staggered to a halt in the soft sand beside the road and leaned over and coughed. She was so unfit! Her chest hurt where she had been shot, the place was still tender when she coughed. She crouched down and hugged her knees. Now that she had stopped moving she could feel how cold the night air was.

What should she do? She had made a fool out of herself twice now, and the worst was fainting in front of him. How pathetic. How mortifying. What must he think of her? Then she had run, when all he had probably wanted was to say a friendly hello.

But she could not look at him now. All looking at him did was bring back the nightmares that had been plaguing her every night since she had woken in that hospital. She had only been able to push them aside by assuring herself that he was dead, and that she no longer needed to fear him for his power. She had also talked herself into loving his memory. What a pale shadow that had been to a few seconds glance at his coat, she had felt all the anxious terror and awe return, slamming through her as if she had walked out of a frozen night into a furnace hall. She did not love him that was not enough to describe how she had felt in that moment. No, that description she had once heard Milly use when she had thought she was out of her hearing suited it best. He was her sun, and she a planet that orbited him. Gah. She sat down in the sand, tears spilling down her face. It was utterly unfair that he had appeared now while she was such a mess inside. Did the man have no consideration for her? No, he probably did not know what an effect he had, she had done all she could, even as far as lying to her own heart to prevent him from knowing.

"Meryl?"

She froze, her breathing stopped, and she felt light headed. She gasped for a breath. No, she would never faint in front of him again.

She watched as his boots came into view, then he knelt down in the sand in front of her.

"Hello." He said softly. "Abe tells me this awful story that you all thought I was dead!" He laughed.

She raised her head, not caring about the tears on her face. There he was, with that terrible gentle sad smile on his face. The one she had seen too often in her waking dreams.

"Meryl?"

She gasped for breath, she had stopped breathing again.

"H-hey, I'm alive, look at me." He caught her shoulders as she swayed.

His touch broke the strange spell she was under. She watched in terror as the dreams that had haunted her nightmares flashed across her waking thoughts. The anguish that twisted her heart, the fear, the pain and agony at having no power over her own mind. She grabbed his arms, then finding that they were real, really there, she threw herself at him.

"Oh, er, Meryl…" He gave a gasp of surprise.

He was there. The smell was right, the feel of his leather armor beneath his coat was right. He was not a dream, he was not a nightmare. He was solid, and part of this world. She looked up at him, and his embarrassed grin faded as alarm crept into his eyes.

She felt herself shaking as she clung to him. She needed him far more than anything she could describe. Tears coursed down her cheeks, her heart stuck in her throat, and she was unable to speak. He was so wonderful and so terrible. His eyes both kind and distant. The way he gently folded his arms around her was tender and so careful, as if he knew his strength was beyond what she could handle. She could only watch his eyes, wishing he could see what tormented her so. Wishing he could see why she was drawn to him again and again. Even when she hated him. Even when he had broken her heart. Even when he had almost destroyed her. She needed him.

"Meryl?" He whispered, his eyes widening. She knew she must look a manic mess, but she could do no other in his presence. "What's wrong?" He asked.

She felt him curl a hand around to cradle the back of her head, worry mounting in his eyes.

"Meryl?" He asked again, anxious now. "Meryl, talk to me."

She tried opening her mouth, but all she could see was his pain. She tried to hold onto sanity and to push the memory away, but the waters of the flood were too high and it swamped her barriers. They were always lower when she was around him. That dastardly love that she felt for him made sure of that. She whimpered as the memory of July overcame her, the anguish flaying her mind raw.

"Meryl!" He snapped.

She heard the unusual command in his voice, but could not respond. Not any more. This was it; she had known it would come. When she could no longer take the torture and drifted away.

(Meryl!) His voice rang silently in her mind.

She screamed, soundlessly. Suddenly the memory was too vivid, too painful too real.

(Meryl.) She heard his agony, but it was different to the pain she felt. She wanted to protect him from that agony and she could.

She tried to smile and say he did not have to be concerned for her. He had more important things in this world than her, but the words would not come. She could hardly find enough breath to remain conscious.

(You've carried that memory like this the whole time?) He sounded aghast. (What have I done to you?)

No. No! He must not know. He must not know more pain. That would be unfair. He was already suffering so much. She tried to hide it, but a force more powerful than her control over her own mind surrounded her. She watched July again, soundlessly keening in agony at the devastation. Then instead of starting again, and sending her into deepening spiral of despair as her dreams always did, another memory flashed before her eyes. It was a peaceful scene, beside a tree on a green field. Somewhere her mind knew that this was not her memory. She had never seen so much grass. She felt she was a child again, watching the adult woman beside her smile down at her, and felt the security and wonder of her love. Then the scene changed again, this time darker, to a scene of mass graves and an overwhelming sorrow, and then changed again to the powerful resolve as she faced down an entire gang of bandits with a single bullet left in her revolver. The relief of seeing them leave and the joy of being able to celebrate with those she had rescued. Then it flipped again to the excruciating anguish of having shot a man, to have deliberately killed him, only in the same memory to have it overplayed with the same amount of anguish at the possibility of having lost one who had so much potential, and the powerful hope that she had in that potential. She saw Livio, then jarringly she saw herself. She felt the gentle way her hands touched her hair. Calming and soothing, then the way she gripped the gun...

When she came to herself she found her face resting against damp material. Strong arms held her so she was pressed against his chest, her face on his shoulder. She felt oddly limp and it took a very long moment after taking her first breath before she realised she could move her arms and head. She blinked. Her skin was raw from having been wet for so long. Her tears made her face itch. She tried to lift her heavy head and saw that he had bent his head over her, his eyes closed and his face screwed up in anguish. Tears dripped off his chin.

She watched him with an odd calmness. For the first time in a long time, she did not want to comfort him. No, to interrupt him now would be to his detriment; he would let the sorrow run its course where it would join his other memories. She closed her eyes and relaxed against him. She felt at peace. So that was how it worked, she had known it, intellectually. However, her heart had not been able to deal with such anguish, but then she had never known such love. She felt a smidgen of self-consciousness rise in her as she thought of the woman she had seen. That was Rem, and that was clearly one of his most precious memories of her. Even turning the pale ghost of her own memory of her over in her mind, she was in awe, the strength one could draw from such secure love and peace. She saw now why he called to Rem as he did. She felt incredibly privileged to have been trusted with that memory.

She watched as he lifted his right arm from her back and wiped his eyes with his fingers then rubbed the tears between his thumb and fingertips. He blinked a few times, his sodden eyelashes sticking together. He sniffed and dipped his head to gaze at her. She smiled serenely up at his beautiful green eyes. Despite all the pain and anguish that they hid, they carried a knowledge of a powerful love, and a hard grafted understanding of what bought peace. No wonder he talked about it all the time.


	28. Chapter 28

_**Chapter 28**_

He smiled a little bashfully and released the hold his left hand had around her. She sat on his legs and wiped her face with her hand. It had been creeping up on her, but she was abruptly aware of how close they were when he shifted. It was as if all her senses were feeding her was how warm he was and how strong his arms had been in their embrace. Suddenly he stopped being Vash the Stampede, the aggravating idiot who she had to follow out of duty, or curiosity, or out of a debt she owed for making his life difficult. No. He was very prominently Vash the Stampede, the man. The physical reality of his presence was almost overwhelming, she felt too tiny with the way he had been able to tuck her against his chest and rest his cheek against her hair without even stretching. Feeling a sharp rise in acute self-consciousness at how close they were, she slipped to the side and sat next to him. She knelt beside him, her thigh pressing against his, trying to orientate her thoughts. How was she supposed to be honest with herself when his very presence made all her logical thinking evaporate with the heat she felt coursing through her entire being?

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She felt she might melt watching his shoulders shift like that.

"Meryl." He whispered and smiled up at the sky. "Can you forgive me for what I made you carry?"

She looked up at his face but she could not see his eyes. There was something about his eyes which always grounded her. Perhaps it was the sorrow he carried, or perhaps it was the window to his soul with which she had fallen irrevocably in love with within the first months of meeting him. She felt strange pains around her heart, as if it were pushing through a thicket of thorns. All the lies that she had ever told herself were trying to keep it bound. It was unfair that he did not look at her now, but that he had stared at her so avidly in her manic despair.

She turned her gaze to the stitching on the shoulder of his red coat. It was an excellent fit and well tailored, and quite the most elegant garment she had ever seen anyone wear. But now, on him, it was the most brashly alluring piece of clothing she had seen in her life. Gah! She clenched her hands. She knew she was utterly lost to him now, if she found his coat so darkly enchanting. No wonder she had lied to herself, she would not have been able to get anything done with this frame of mind.

A cold breeze on her face reminded her that time was passing. He had asked her a question before her thoughts had damned her. What was it? For her to forgive him? She felt her heart break at him thinking that she would not. No, that was not what he had really asked, with Vash, it was always something deeper; she had learned that the hard way. She had also gained another insight with the memories he had shared with her, and it was a strange one.

"Can you forgive yourself?" She asked in reply, knowing it was the right thing to say.

She watched as his eyes went wide and all the peace and contentment that had been there a second ago all crowded into defensiveness. He watched her like a cornered animal, waiting for the slight movement by which to determine which way to flee.

She did not move.

He jerkily looked away. He clenched his right fist. He shifted so that he no longer touched her. He fidgeted, rubbing the mechanical fingers of his left hand together. He tried to hold himself still and went so ridged his jaw muscles strained. He tried to relax, but this only resulted in him curling his arms tightly around himself and hunching over. She was astonished when he ended up in a foetal position, a full defensive preservation of the self. Yet, he had not run. That would have been the simpler option.

She dared not move. He was one of the most flighty people she knew, though his determination frequently overruled this instinct. She watched his breathing slow from panicked jerks to a measured steady motion, and his tense frame slowly relaxed. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever witnessed. The way he rested his head on the ground made her wonder if he had fallen asleep. Then he moved. He splayed out his prosthetic hand on the ground and slowly pushed himself back into a sitting position. His eyes were wide and staring, but not nearly as full of horror as they had been.

To her exquisite delight he tentatively reached for her once he had steadied himself. She slowly unfolded her arm, shocked to discover she had been hugging herself as hard as he had been. He took her hand as if it were some kind of new device he had never seen before. She was quite glad that he could not sense the strange fire his touch sent up her arm. He turned her hand slightly from side to side then gingerly gripped it, his palm around the back of her hand and his fingers tucked into her palm. He stared at her, but his eyes were lost and bewildered, he was trying to communicate though he did not have words to express himself.

She smiled at him. Quite by accident she had discovered a way around that. She reached out and her hand was an eighth of an inch from his forehead before he realised what she wanted. He threw himself backwards so hard he turned a roll and was up on his feet before she had even realised he had released her hand. The sheer grace of such a movement almost stopped her heart. He clutched at his chest with his hands, panting hard. He twitchily looked from side to side, then up at the sky, then down at her. He clenched his fists and then crouched down, blowing out a long breath.

"Meryl." He said softly, his expression taking on a tired knowing look. "You don't want that in your head."

"But I know it is in yours." She dropped her hand into her lap.

He sat on his haunches and rested his long arms on his knees. He then thumbed his chin thoughtfully. Before he could speak, she shifted around to face him. Aside from her hypersensitive awareness of his physical presence, he had given her another gift. Her soul had not felt at such peace for a long time, and that was his doing.

"You have given me so many things." She said quietly. "You gave me a run for my money, you gave me heart attacks with your reckless ways, you gave me any number of sleepless nights with the destruction you caused, and nightmares with that memory of yours."

She watched as his face fell and smiled at him.

"But that's just it. As bad as it was, you gave me many good things to. You gave me your trust, you gave me your protection against the great devastation, you gave us your all to protect this world, and you let us glimpse that you would give your life to protect your brother."

He scratched at the back of his neck and shifted self-consciously.

She folded her hands over her knees.

"You seem to see only the horrors when you think of forgiveness, horrors that haunt your soul. Yet you cannot see how this is vastly outweighed by the great good you do." She shrugged. "Evil is heavier than good, and when you dwell on it, only grows in weight. But you know that to dwell on love and peace allows lightness of good to rise, stronger than the evil." She laughed softly, reflecting on her words, he knew this, and lived it. Ah, how was it that he was always one step ahead of her? She changed tack. "It won't help the soul wound you carry, as only you can bring closure on it. But believe me, even if it is for one tiny moment that right now, with all you have been through and all that you have done, you fully and utterly deserve that love that you felt from Rem."

He sank down onto the ground with one arm curled around his knees and his free hand across his mouth, his expression tentative and introspective. She slowly pushed herself off the ground and walked over to him. Her heightened awareness of him denied her this, but the peace in her soul allowed such daring. She knelt at his left side and wrapped her arms around him and hugged him as hard as she could, her fingers digging into the thick material of his coat. She pressed her face against the back of his head and taking in the scent of his hair. She felt his shoulders rise and fall as he breathed. That spicy scent that was all his own intoxicated her.

"You are loved, you wonderful man." She murmured as she released him.

She did not mind the silly smile he suddenly rewarded her with, as she knew now what that was hiding. She sat down on the ground beside him. All the confusion and doubt had gone. She knew what she must do. She smiled at the peace in her heart. It did not matter that he did not return her love. What mattered was that he knew that she loved him. He had given her peace, and that was gift enough.

* * *

A tall man dressed the Earth Federation Peace Force uniform walked through the wreckage of the gateway. The defenders of December City had just bombed it, and he was frantic. He had seen the man in the red coat fall from atop the wall. He had to find him. He had to. He dodged other patrols and people doing the same thing. Was that red? Yes? Yes! He leaped over the rubble and ran over to where a man lay sprawled out on the wreckage of the gate, his red coat blood sodden.

"This filthy thing!" He cussed under his breath, drew his belt knife and swiftly cut the red coat off the limp body. "Stupid fool for wearing it!" He growled. "Determination, fegh!" He spat as he with surprising gentleness lifted the body. "Or is your brain so addled red is the only way you remember it?"

The man draped his own coat over his face to hide him. If only he did not have his face stuck up on every sheriff's office on the planet.

"The things I must do for you." He complained, but did not slacken his pace out through the gates and angled away from the fighting across the dead zone between the two armies. Peculiarly, no one seemed to take too much notice of him.

He arrived at a small jeep where a man whose face was hidden by a deep hood waited. After he placed Vash's body in the back, he climbed into the passenger seat.

"Take us to the outpost." He ordered.

"Yes Chieftain." The man at the wheel started the car and they drove off, ignored by the two opposing sides.

The imposing building that was the Outpost for the Eye of Micheal stood like a broken shard against two moons that had risen that night. The gates were opened as they approached and swung closed with a thud after they drove in. They drove through the halls of the mostly empty building to come to a halt in front of a pair of double doors. This time several people emerged to assist, but the tall man imperiously waved them all away and lifted Vash up from the back seat without apparent effort. He carried him across the room and set him down in one of the examination beds on the far side of the lab. With the assistance of the technicians and doctors, he stripped Vash naked. Once the doctors had taken a quick examination, and assured him that he was still alive and likely to live through the night, the Chieftain approached again. This time he was curiously tentative, as if he did not want to know the answer to his questions. All around him the doctors were cleaning and stitching bullet wounds, but what he needed could be gained from the monitors placed on Vash's right arm. He and two technicians watched the readouts with grim concentration.

"His gate is still operational, Chieftain." One of the technicians said with a deferential nod. "He has anything up to fifty years if he does not use his power."

The chieftain regarded this blankly for a moment, then closed his eyes and his shoulders seemed to sink slightly. It was all the outward sign he would give of the vast relief he felt inside.

The Chieftain sat on a chair watching the doctor's finish up their work. They spread a blanket over him, and left him to sleep off the anaesthetic they had given him. He would have his revenge. He would find the person who had done this to Vash and they would be made to so sincerely regret it, they would rue day they were born. His bleak musings were interrupted by a diffident cough.

"Chieftain, the Leader of the Sandworms has arrived."

He glanced up at one of the black clad assassins who were of the Eye of Michael.

"Send him in."

The slit eyed man walked across the room as if he owned it. In a way, he did, but the arrogance was not lost on the Eye of Michael, and they resented those who had anything to do with the Sandworms. Were it not for his presence, the Cheiftain was sure they would have set up a death duel over that. At one time, he would have found it rather entertaining; in fact, even now the idea had very pleasing prospects. However, there were other factors to consider.

"Chieftain, we have the intelligence you wanted."

"As do we." Isa, a heavy set man clad in the black of the Eye of Michael murmured as he walked silently up behind the Leader of the Sandworms. The Chieftain ignored the interruption, and focussed on the Leader.

"What of the two others?"

The Leader of the Sandworms grimaced at being reminded that he was no longer the only ruler of the vast hive mind.

"We have conversed; it is I who was to bring the report to you."

The Chieftain smiled grimly, the conversation must have been with daggers the way his clothes were torn and blood stained.

"Then let me hear it."

"The witnesses on the wall place the one who shot Vash as one named Johnston of the Terrans. Only, this seems to be a false name, as there is no record of him on either the Terran systems or those of No Man's Land. It is therefore most likely that he is native to this planet."

The tall Chieftain slouched back in his chair and grimaced at this, his cold eyes flashing with an intense fury. He could have, at one time, taken out the entire population of this dusty planet. But each time, something had forestalled him. He did not look at the man lying prone on the bed, who had overturned the best of his plans. He turned his irate gaze to the messenger of the Eye of Michael.

"Report." He said.

"You asked us to investigate who it was that hired Ezrah who tried to kill you the other day. We have concluded that it is Umbro, a Terran of the ship Exitalis, one of the three missing Terran ships that fell to the world and were never found or their crews recovered."

"Ah." The Chieftain breathed with icy bitterness. "Then we wait." He murmured with a bleak decisiveness. Time would bring them an opening, and he had an enduring patience when it came to vendettas.

* * *

 _Vash awoke disorientated. He stared up at the unfamiliar window and ceiling. The bed he was in was too short for him and someone had propped his feet up on an old chest with a pillow resting on it. He swung his legs out of the bed and found himself clad only in loose sleeping trousers and for some reason he was missing his prosthetic. That was annoying, and new, he had not been robbed of it before. It had been shot off numerous times, but that was expected with his life style. Where was he? What place would rob a man of something custom built for him? Had they taken it for the concealed gun? Was he just meat waiting to be processed at some organ chop shop? Panicked, he clambered out of bed and peered out of the window. He breathed out a sigh of relief. He could see the back of the hotel sign and the busy day to day life of the town as it was enacted out on the main street. He inspected his left arm. It had been removed cleanly; someone had detached it without damaging the socket that linked with his body. That was a relief. He hated it when he had to have repairs done it made all the sensitive nerve endings that were usually bearable complain for weeks._

 _He looked around the small room, a bed, a chest of drawers and a chair by the window was all that was in it. His duffle was propped against the drawers. He pulled it over to the bed and sat down to open it. He wanted his coat. Without his arm, that coat would help him feel just a little more secure. He lifted out an unusual thing from the bag. It was not his, and it was lying directly on top of his own stuff. A white scarf. He turned the soft material over in his fingers then caught a scent that jolted him back a century and a half. He put it to his nose and sniffed, then closed his eyes as memories cascaded through his mind. Knives. The scarf had his brother's scent. He hastily unpacked the rest of his bag, but everything else in it was his own. His coat was not there, but the black revolver was. It had been cleaned and several new boxes of bullets had been supplied. He checked them, but there was no head stamp indicating who had made them._

 _He sat on the bed with the revolver in his hand feeling very confused. Why had his brother helped him? Had it been his brother? Why had he not taken the gun then? It belonged to him and he was possessive about his things. What had happened to his arm? Why had Knives taken it, if it had indeed been Knives?_

 _He buried his face in the scarf again. The scent had two parallel sets of memories: one of comfort, the other of long torment._

 _What could he last remember? A vague memory of December filtered up through his mind. Oh no! The City of December. They had bombed it. He'd tried to negotiate a truce. Ow. He remembered being shot. He looked down at his body and fingered the new scars that were there. Someone had taken much care with them as they were neat wounds, tidily stitched and had healed well. Knives? No. Knives had never truly cared about his wellbeing like this. So who had looked after him and put him in this room?_

 _He dressed and loaded the revolver and slipped it into his holster. He counted out the double dollars in his wallet. Still fifty, no one had seen fit to gift him a few extra dollars. Ah well, he could always hope. He hiked his bag over his shoulder and went downstairs. He found an old grandmother sitting at the reception desk knitting and chattering away to an equally as elderly woman who was sipping a martini. He checked the time, surprised, it was already late afternoon. They both stopped their talk and stared at him._

" _He's awake and a fine strapping young man! You told me he was worse for wear!"_

 _Vash blinked at the old woman who slyly sipped her martini and winked roguishly up at him._

" _The young ladies are in Jake's Saloon three blocks down, but an old bird like me can always-"_

" _Zipphora!" The grandmother behind the counter scolded. "Excuse her, sir. Will you be checking out? Your bill was paid till the end of the week."_

 _Vash blinked._

" _Can I see the signature?"_

 _The old woman pushed the ledger over to him and he looked down at the page. Alex Saverem, written in neat print letters so it could not be mistaken, was written in a very familiar hand. Knives. Knives had been here, in amongst a few thousand people, and nothing had happened. Vash traced the letters with his finger, it was a code of sorts, he supposed. Of course Knives could not use his own name, so had taken one only he and Vash knew. He suddenly felt very tired. He had three more days use of the room. He smiled._

" _I'll stay till the end of the week. Thanks. I just need to go out for a bit. Would you hold my key?"_

" _Yes dear." Zipphora chimed in before the receptionist could._

 _Vash walked out of the hotel trying to work out why Knives -if it was really Knives, who else could it have been- had left the people alive. Why had his brother not woken him? What was going on? He stood at the door looking out at the street in a quandary._

" _Ooh, they make them good these days. Look at the fine arse on that youngster!"_

" _Zipphora!"_

" _I bet he works out."_

 _Vash almost laughed aloud at that. He was years older than she was, and there she was near the end of her life, admiring him. He walked slowly down the stairs for her benefit then went on to find the general store, then the post office, and the satellite station. He had news to catch up with, and messages to send._

 _He had contacted the Seeds ship, and they had agreed to meet him here. In the time it had taken one of the Seeds people to arrive, Meryl had also appeared. That must have been Luida, though why did she think he needed companionship? Or had she sent the girls for a very different reason? He had not had the time to ask, he had spent most of the afternoon with Kail, fitting his arm and checking the equipment. Vash glanced down at the small woman seated beside him in the darkness; no, now would not be the time to ask. Not tonight._

* * *

They walked back through the cold night air, not speaking. Vash had a distant expression in his eyes and a silly smile on his face. Meryl was feeling too drained to work this out, though the fact he hadn't said anything was beginning to flag warning signs in her mind. He usually had something to say. She was cold, her head ached, and all her other senses in her body tracked his every movement as if her life depended on it. She knew she was irrevocably caught by him, and tried to ignore the way it felt as though her body was floating. It was her own fault for falling in love with a man so bound in wanderlust, chaos and sorrow as he was. By his very nature he could not be anything she needed. She clenched her fists and bitterly contemplated how his dark fate made even love a torment.

They reached the bar and Vash sauntered in as if he owned the place. Abe took one look at him, then at Meryl and gave them the oddest stare she had ever seen on his face. It was a mixture of bewilderment and disbelief. She then remembered his talent as an empath and scowled at him, good luck to him in deciphering what he must be sensing now. Milly hurried over and Meryl accepted the hug from her friend.

"Miss Meryl, what happened?" She whispered.

"We talked things out." She said shortly, feeling exhaustion creep up on her.

"Ah, er…" Milly murmured. "You have mud smears all over your face."

She reached up to her face in alarm and saw how dirty her hands were. She glared across at Vash who had seated himself at the bar. He had the same mud smears all over on his new coat.

He laughed brightly as the barkeep asked him about this.

"It's nothing!" He exclaimed with a silly laugh. "I only tried to help her; it wasn't my fault that she fell face first in the tomas trough and thought I was some bandit!" He cringed. "Don't get on her bad side; she can sure lecture your ears off!"

Meryl stared at him. With one lie he had protected her. There were some muffled guffaws and knowing glances in her direction. He had protected her and made her out to be as big an idiot as he. She lost it. She marched over to him and smacked him as hard as she could on his prosthetic arm, then stormed out of the bar. Raucous laughter followed her out, along with his piteous whines of 'What? What did I do?' Milly ran after her as she marched up the street gripping her aching hand.


	29. Chapter 29

_**Chapter 29**_

She sank into the bath and made sure to wash her face and hair first. She then lay there, playing with the soap suds. Milly knocked timidly at the door, as Meryl topped up with hot water for the fifth time.

"Miss Meryl, are you all right? Did Mister Vash make you cry? What happened? Why did you fall in a tomas trough?"

Meryl smiled. Yes, he had, but they had been the best tears she had ever cried. She did not know how to explain this to her friend. She sank under the water and blew bubbles. If she just stayed here in the quiet underwater world, things would be so much simpler. She sat up with a sigh, then stood and water cascaded down her body. Luida had known he would be here. She grabbed her towel and vigorously dried herself. Once out of the hot water, the bathroom was icy. Why had Luida not told them that he would be here? Or had she thought Vash needed help, and had sent them along to see if he would accept them? Oh dear, if that were the case, they would have to set up a watch to prevent him from sneaking away from them. He was doubly sure to run now that she'd practically told him she loved him. She pulled on her pyjamas and wrenched the door open with fury. Milly glanced up in alarm.

"Meryl! Is it so bad?"

She blinked at her partner blankly. Oh yes, she still thought she had fallen in the tomas trough.

"It's worse." She muttered. She went across to her suitcase, drew out a clean change of clothing, and retreated to the bathroom to change hastily.

"Miss Meryl, what are you doing?"

"Settling something before the recipient becomes too drunk to know what happened." She growled.

Milly hurried after her, down the stairs.

"What did he do to you?" She asked in alarm. "I'll bring my stun gun."

Meryl laughed, feeling odd, she had not laughed in so long.

"No. He told the truth. He did rescue me." She assured Milly. "I only want to make sure he doesn't run away."

She pushed the doors of the hotel open and hurried down the stairs into the street. Meryl shivered and pulled her cloak tightly around her shoulders. It was even colder outdoors. She scuffed at the dirt road while Milly pulled the hotel door closed behind her.

"Are you sure you don't want me to bring my stun gun?" Milly asked.

"Why would you need a stun gun?"

Meryl spun around, landing cat like, feeling all her hair standing on end.

A tall man pushed himself out of the shadows into the lamp light, his coat familiar and the bullet hole in the brim of his hat distinctive.

"You!" Milly exclaimed in fury. "You evil man!"

"Johnston!" She hissed and drew her derringers as she spoke, firing eight off before she realised how useless it was. He simply manifested weird feathers in front of him, blocking the bullets as if catching flung baseballs.

"You're a bloody nuisance." He slowly drew a familiar silver revolver. "Still on my tail after I shot you once? Didn't you understand?" He breathed with menace. "You were supposed to be a warning to all of those meddlers at Fifth Moon, but they need a stronger message, don't they?"

A shot thundered through the air and Johnston leaped backwards. He grabbed at his hat as it was flung off his head. Meryl was astounded; the bullet had burned directly through his defensive feathers. Johnston gaped at the fresh bullet hole in his hat, directly opposite where the other one was. What had Vash fired? That was no regular bullet.

"What is the matter?" A quiet growl sounded from behind them. Meryl felt her knees go weak. The guttural purr was pure fury and power. "Don't you like it? It evens it out, somehow."

Vash stepped in front of them, a black revolver in his hand.

"Go back inside." He murmured in a voice more like his own. "All the way inside, go on."

Meryl only realised he was speaking to them when Milly tugged at her arm and dragged her back up the steps.

"Where are my friends, Johnston?" Vash asked bleakly.

Meryl wriggled out of Milly's grip as Abe and Calor came running along with others from the bar.

"Johnston?" Calor exclaimed. "That's not Johnston!" She exclaimed. "Vash put your gun down, that's Teres!"

Meryl stared.

It was Teres, now that she looked at him, but he did not have black hair and the bulky coat he wore changed his whole physique.

"Keep your gun on him!" Abe snapped. "He's Teres, that is true, but damn, if he isn't also Johnston."

"Oh come now." Teres smiled. "I got you good, look at the expressions on your faces." He lowered the silver revolver and smiled broadly at Abe. "Aren't you glad to see an old friend?"

"We never had a friendship, you back stabbing traitor!" Abe spat at him. "I held the trust and you twisted it beyond recognition."

Teres tilted his head slightly.

"Angry? What have I done, compared to Ezrah and Mutare?"

Abe did not bother to use words; he flew at him, knife like feathers scything out from his body. There was a sudden brilliant light.

"No!" Vash's horrified voice cut through the night. His cry gave Meryl enough warning to haul her cape over her head as the shock blasted in all the street windows of the boarding house. She scrambled to her feet, crunching over glass, and ran with Milly to see what had happened. Abe was lying on his back on the ground, Vash crouched over him, and Calor was shaking as she withdrew white feathers back into her arms. Johnston was nowhere in sight.

"Are you alright?" Vash called up to them.

"We're fine Mister Vash." Milly murmured, shaken. "Where is Mister Teres?"

Abe pushed himself up.

"The thrice cursed traitor teleported. I was so close to killing him!" He pushed Vash away and got to his feet, reeling slightly. "Woah, my gate is all weird." He clung to Vash's shoulder. "But there is one good thing about all this." He grinned manically. "That traitor must have had to use a quarter of his life's power doing that. Didn't expect to meet us here, did he? Haha!" Abe then slumped and Vash caught him awkwardly. He lowered the man to the ground as strange white flickers of almost feathers, almost flames formed around him.

"Abe!" Calor cried and ran over to him. She put her hands on his shoulders. "Shut the flow down, you fool! Wake up and shut it down! You'll kill yourself." She smacked him through the face.

Abe blearily blinked at her.

"Shut it down pilot, that's an order!" She barked in such a strong Terran accent, Meryl hardly caught the words.

Abe blinked and the feathers vanished.

"Now get off your sorry arse, and go back to the bar. I will deal with you when I have finished cleaning up this indescribable mess you have caused here."

"'s Flight." He mumbled.

"What was that? I didn't hear it!" She snapped at him.

"Yes Flight Commander. At once Flight Commander!" He shakily pushed himself to his feet and staggered down the road.

The crowd of onlookers parted for him as Calor straightened and glared at them.

"Sorry. Get your chief magistrate, banker and the owner of this premises. Tell them Flight Commander Calor wishes to discuss reparations."

They stared at her.

"Are you deaf?" She snapped at them.

Several people left, and two came forward. Both eyed Calor in a strange awe and glanced in recognition at Vash. The man did not seem to be aware of this, as he was smiling slightly at Calor. A hot surge of jealousy engulfed Meryl. Why hadn't she seen it before? Calor was just the type of woman Vash loved to pursue and she was a plant. She turned away and walked up the stairs into the building, ignoring the crunch of glass underfoot.

"Miss Meryl, don't you want to know what is going to happen?"

"They made the mess, they can clean it up." She snapped. "I've got an awful headache. I'm going to bed!"

Meryl realised that Milly had not followed her upstairs and sulkily slammed the door behind her. She kicked off her shoes and threw down her cape and sank back on the bed. She wanted to cry, and laugh and mostly she wanted to, oh, she did not know what she wanted. How was it that Vash with one silly smile at another woman could do that to her? She was toweringly furious, yet, at the same time she couldn't be. He was not hers. He would never be hers. She huffed out a sigh and picked up the cold compress and put it over her aching head. It didn't make her feel any better. She let out a soft breath then. She wasn't angry at Vash. No, she was upset with Teres, and she was taking it out on Vash and his eye for the ladies. She clenched her pillow in her fist. Oh, what she would do when she got her hands on that two faced arsehole. Shooting him would be only a last resort. She had a mind to let every plant that Fifth Moon had helped to come and assist her with kicking him to death. She gave a ragged gasp and sat up; the cold compress fell to the floor with a wet thud. Teres knew everything Fifth Moon did. Every little thing. Aside from Abe, he had been one of their main recruiters. She felt so ill she swayed, then darted from the bed and only made it to the bathroom in time.

She shakily sat on the edge of the bath as the last of the nausea surged through her. What had she done? What in the world had she done? She had condemned everyone they had helped. She breathed rapidly, feeling light headed. No! Meryl, this was no time to faint. She hadn't felt so awful ever. Not even Vash's dreadful memory of July came close. No, this was her own condemnation, her own damnation. She was responsible for what would be a massacre if they didn't move fast.

She darted out of the bathroom and sat on the floor trying to tug her boots on and clip the buttons closed at the same time. Ugh. One thing at a time. More haste less speed. Aaagh, she was going too slowly. She got her boots on, snatched up her cape and flew out of the door. She thundered down the stairs, tying her cape ribbon as she went. She found Milly sweeping up the glass in the front foyer with a few of the Hotel's assistants.

"Milly!" She exclaimed anxiously.

"Miss Meryl, what has happened?" Milly asked.

"Everyone is dead!" She exclaimed and to her intense mortification, burst into tears.

Milly handed her broom to one of the assistants and hugged her.

"Who is dead Miss Meryl?" Milly asked anxiously. "Mister Abe is still alive, I saw him. Miss Calor is in the bar with him, they were drinking with Mister Vash."

Meryl wiped at her tears and sniffed. She dug out her handkerchief and grimaced, she had been crying far too much that night.

"Everyone we helped at Fifth Moon. Teres knows." She breathed.

Horror spread over Milly's face.

"What should, er what can we do?" Milly had to clear her throat and repeat herself as the first words came out silent.

"I don't know! Warn people. Warn everyone!" Meryl said hysterically.

"Come, Miss Meryl." Milly said firmly, then waved at the others helping with the sweeping. "I'll be back when I can."

"Sure, see you Milly!" One of the young men called after them.

Meryl followed her out of the hotel and down to the bar. Calor sat at a table in the far corner of the room with Vash sitting far too close to her, Abe sat opposite them drinking as if he wanted to pass out. Meryl managed to walk half way across the room before her courage failed her. Vash would hear this. She put her head in her hands, she couldn't let him hear. No. Why was she falling apart like this? Why did she even think she had a chance with him when he clearly did not have an interest in her? It would not matter if he heard of this colossal failure. Logic held out, but her heart did not. Milly only noticed she was not following when she reached the table and sat down.

"Are you crying again Miss Meryl?" Milly asked, her voice full of concern.

Meryl glared at her friend if it had not been for the dreadful worry and gentleness in Milly's voice, she would have stormed out. At the mention of crying, Vash glanced up, his eyes full of guilty worry. Oh no! Of course he would think it was about him. Stupid man. Stupid, wonderful man. She wanted to shake him.

She walked over and sank into the chair between Calor and Milly.

"Fifth Moon is in trouble." She said bleakly. "Teres knows everything."

Abe put down his drink, his face suddenly the colour of cold day old porridge. Calor let her head fall into her hands.

The wretched silence was broken by Calor thumping the table with her fist.

"I HATE that man!" She growled. "He worked so hard and did so much for people. How could he do this? HOW!" She shrieked at them.

"Calor..."

"Don't you Calor me, Abe." Calor growled. "Your solution to this was to drink yourself into a stupor."

"I only wanted to drink myself into oblivion because overreaching on a nearly dead gate makes you feel like dogs vomit. Get it?" He snapped back. "We can't go to pieces here. We have a duty to help people."

They glared at each other.

"Um." Milly said softly. "I have an idea."

Meryl breathed out a sigh of relief; this was why she loved Milly so much. The girl could think where she froze. All she had in her mind was how she wanted to pound Teres into tiny little bits, and then grind up those bits.

When no one responded, Vash spoke up.

"What is it?"

Meryl felt even worse, if Vash had to play the adult in any situation, what a mess were they all in? She caught the condescension in her thought and closed her eyes. She was losing, what advantage did mocking Vash give her except to now make her regret her own thoughts. She wished she could go to sleep and give up the responsibility. Ugh, that was it, she couldn't.

"Well, it's just a bit of an idea, really." Milly said modestly. "But I was thinking that it would be best if someone returned to December. We need to contact all the correspondents and plants. Together we could work to convince them to go into hiding, or at least find safe places for them. I was thinking of asking Mister Kail if they would allow us to use the Satellite broadcast station at Seeds for a reduced rate. We don't have enough money now thanks to Mister Teres."

"No." Meryl cut in. "No one can leave yet. We need to hear from Livio and Chronica first. But we can contact everyone from here. We have enough money for that."

Milly and Calor glanced at Meryl.

"We don't." Calor explained and handed over her personal communicator.

Meryl stared at the balance of the company account. They had the grand total of one hundred and twelve double dollars left. What had happened to all their thousands?

"It cost that much to fix a hotel?"

"And to pay the hospital bills of the people hurt by the glass, and to bribe the local lawmen not to lock us up and report us as rogue plants."

Meryl dug into the pocket of her skirt and brought out another fifty and handed it to Calor.

"That's all I have on me. Send out as many messages as you can."

Calor took it, and the thirty that Abe handed her, and the twenty from Milly.

"I'll come with you." Vash shoved back his chair as she got to her feet.

Meryl felt her stomach turn as they walked out together. Ugh, why was he so attentive to Calor now? Why did she care so damn much?

Abe turned his glass around in his hands. He then sighed and with a deep breath, downed it in a succession of gulps. He blinked then sighed.

"I'm sober." He complained. "I feel like I've been kicked repeatedly by a tomas and my head is pounding. My bedroom is full of glass and I now realise I have no money to pay for another night. I need to do something before I, I, I dunno, I claw my own face off with frustration."

"You could always help sweep up at the hotel." Milly suggested.

Abe raised an eyebrow and his mouth fell open as if this was the last thing on his mind.

"Work." He grumbled then grinned broadly, his smile rather manic. "C'mon Milly girl, let's be sweeping!"

He helped her out of her chair and they walked out of the bar. Milly glanced back at Meryl, but Abe was too insistent to let her go to her friend. Meryl glanced up as the waiter hurried over.

"You have forty double dollars on the tab Ma'am."

Oh, bloody brilliant.

"Can we pay it in the morning?"

"Er." The waiter shrugged. "You see, it's not, well..."

Meryl took out one of her derringers and held it out to him. It was unloaded.

"Keep this in lieu of payment, I will pay you tomorrow. I promise. Meryl Stryfe..."

He tucked his hands behind his back in refusal.

"I know who you are Miss Stryfe, and who you are with and what has happened." He glanced at the door. "It's just we know Vash's reputation, and we don't want any trouble here. See my meaning?"

They thought this was Vash's fault? It figured. It was also kind of his fault, now that she thought about it.

"So, what do you want me to do? I have some cash in my pack; you can walk me back to the hotel and get it from me there if you must."

"Ah, right, if you don't mind." The waiter fidgeted and glanced at the barkeep who gave Meryl a very steady stare of discontent.

Oh wonderful, so it was back to that all over again. Lynch mobs formed in moods like this, she would have to warn Vash, but she would first have to get the waiter off her tail.


	30. Chapter 30

_**Chapter 30**_

She found Vash outside the broadcast station on a rough concrete bench, sitting with his arm around Calor as she cried into his shoulder. Meryl felt a blush darken her cheeks as she realised that had been her just an hour previously. The poor man, having to deal with all the female waterworks. She suddenly felt very self-conscious and turned to go, but he glanced up and saw her before she could slip away. He gave her such a questioning stare that she knew she could not leave yet. She crept over as he gingerly patted Calor's hair.

"The town is not happy."

"I know." He said softly. "They refused to send our messages. Said a bunch of unnecessary things too."

"We were just trying to help the stupid humans." Calor breathed raggedly and shrugged Vash's arm off her shoulders. He placed his hands in his lap and watched her attentively.

"But all the humans can see is that we're plants and we're trouble. What I would do to break my damned oath and let one of those bloody humans see what is in my mind." She ground her teeth in frustration.

"We need to move on." Meryl said quietly. "Sorry, they know who we all are."

Vash grimaced.

"My reputation precedes me, I see."

"As does mine." Meryl said, "I got the whole Meryl Stryfe thing in the bar."

"Sorry." Vash said.

She kicked his boot lightly.

"It's not you, stupid. They don't trust any of us."

"Because of me."

Calor laughed and put her arm around him, making him stare at her, astonished. Her makeup had run, making her face a tragic mask of sorrow and unkemptness.

"Teres was terrified of you, you know? The only unlimited plant he had ever met and the most unpredictable. It's a good thing, your reputation, or he'd have stayed and killed Abe, and Meryl and Milly before you had the chance to get another shot off."

Vash tried to work out how this was a good thing.

"You keep him in check. I don't know what exactly it is he fears, but he is not keen to face you in open battle."

Vash clenched his hands in his lap, his face neutral, but his eyes upset.

Calor perked up suddenly.

"I still have my communicator. If we wake Kail, do you think he could call Seeds for us?"

"It could work." Vash said with a broad smile.

The two of them got up.

"Coming?" Calor asked.

"Not now, I've got to go and help Milly." Meryl said brightly. At least that way she would not have to watch the two of them together.

.

Meryl woke at two in the morning to voices outside the door and a persistent knocking. Milly was snoring softly, so she grabbed the top blanket off her bed and went to peer through the keyhole as more knocking came, all she could see was red. She opened the door and Vash gave her a broad grin. He had Calor wrapped around him and between them they managed to stay semi upright. The smell of the liquor radiated off them like a furnace blast.

"Do ya aa havea room for Calor, herss is fulledof glassss." Vash tried to lean on the edge of the door and missed, catching the wall a half second later with a frantic slap of his hand.

Calor giggled.

"Vash, where's she going to sleep?" Meryl asked snippily.

"Can't sleep in my bed neither, mmh no bed tonight."

Meryl scowled at him, then realised something. Whenever he needed help, he either ended up with Seeds or came looking for her. She clenched her fists in frustration, very tempted to close the door in his face. She was not just there to help him! She took a deep breath. No, it was not his fault that she wanted more out of this. It was, but it was also her issue. She closed her eyes and breathed out.

"Put her on the bed."

They clumped over to the bed and Vash helped Calor onto it, then tugged off her boots and tucked her under the blankets. She giggled again, then sat up suddenly and kissed Vash on the cheek. He smiled and petted her hair too gently for there to be nothing between them.

Meryl clenched her fists in her blanket and waited by the door. Oh yes, she would trip him on the way out. That would teach him to bring his new girlfriend into her room at two in the morning.

Calor then grabbed him around the neck and Vash only caught his balance by grabbing the headboard.

"Come sleeeepp."

Vash lithely twisted out of her grasp and wove his way across the room, then returned with a glass of water. He held it out and Calor gave him a large pout before taking it and sipping it, each sip with an increasingly sulky look in his direction. Vash put his hand over his eyes as if his head hurt.

"Go to sleep Calor." Vash murmured as he took the empty glass.

"I loooooove youuuu." She declared and tried to throw out her arms to hug him and slammed her hand into the wall. She did not even notice.

"Lie down and go to sleep Calor." He gathered her hands and coaxed her down onto the pillow. He let her grasp his hand while she settled.

Meryl felt the cold begin to bite at her bare feet, then creep up her ankles. Vash then disentangled his hand and pulled the blankets around Calor. His gentleness ate large holes of longing in her stomach. She clutched the blanket around herself and firmly shoved the emotions to one side. It was one thing to be crossed in love, but quite another to see what she desired being played out for another.

Vash walked over to her, rubbing his eyes.

"Thank you." He sounded so tired and heart wrenchingly grateful that he was out in the hall before she remembered she had wanted to trip him. "Good night."

Meryl closed the door without replying, she could not face him for another second without crying.

She inspected her options, then dug some thick socks out of her bag, wrapped herself up more carefully in her blanket and perched on the chair beside the window so she could sleep half on the broad sill.

.

Meryl sat at the café watching as the town woke up. They had perhaps not heard what had happened the night before, and had obliged her with a large banana sundae to eat as breakfast. At least that in her day had started well. She had slept in fits and starts the rest of the night. Finally, she had woken an hour before dawn and had climbed out of the blanket and run a bath to warm herself up. Calor and Milly were still sleeping. She had dressed then walked through the town in the cold dawn air as the suns rose. Her nightmares were not gone, but they lacked the horrific intensity. It was not even discomfort of her improvised bed, or her fury at the two am visit, that had urged her restlessly out of the hotel, no it was something else altogether. In her hazy dreams and tired drifting thoughts, another fact came to her. She had actually hugged him. Twice. He had not run away or laughed it off. Then to top it off she had told him he was loved, as if he did not know that. She felt mortified. What must he think of her, treating him like an upset child? No wonder he had been smiling at Calor last night. She took a large scoop of ice cream and screwed up her face as it gave her an ice headache. She liked Calor, but why had Vash decided to become interested in her now? She clenched her fist around the spoon. The thought of him being nice to other people made her blood boil, but that was part of his charm. He was kind to everyone, even those who betrayed him, or hunted him down to kill him, and even his brother who was his opposite in thought, word and deed. No, her childish protective love was nothing compared to what he had. He lived on another plain of existence to her when it came to love. Yet, he lacked something, she knew he did, or she would not be so strongly drawn to him. She took another scoop of ice cream, careful not to bite it this time.

It wasn't that he was not interested in a relationship. She laughed to herself as she licked the spoon. No, she'd seen him being turned down several times by the pretty women he liked to smarmy up to. However, there was something predictable about those women. They thought themselves so out of his league that they led him on, dumped him, and on occasion were surprised by how he turned the situation around to help them in some way, even if he got his heart broken. Ah, so that was it, there was something he'd noticed in Calor. Well, that would be interesting to watch. Risky, but if she knew her man, and she was fairly certain she did, then this would not lead to anything and it would be to Calor's benefit.

Why had he never done anything of the like to her? She knew she did not fit the profile of tall and preferably busty, and his interactions with her were very different. In public they were more formal, with the teasing and the banter that went with him, yet in private, they shared an intimacy she had never seen matched, save perhaps a different manner, his relationship with Wolfwood. Damn. Damn. Damn! She was his. The tragedy was he could never be hers. She knew that, damn it! She knew that. Yet every time she tried to think it through it came out aching awfully. She finished her banana sundae and paid her bill then realized that as much as she wanted to go back to bed, it was occupied. She walked slowly down the street in the warm early morning light; trying to remember what life had felt like without a certain red-coated gunman.

* * *

Vash watched Meryl leave the café and walk with stooped shoulders back to the hotel. He smiled. She had frightened him yesterday with all those tears, and he felt rather ill at the cause of them. He had known she had shared that memory, and had carried it painfully. It had been what had given him the understanding needed to break the fused entity Knives had created. He rested his chin on his new prosthetic which Kail had affixed yesterday. He'd tested out the gun and it had more kick than the old one, but smoother transition and easier reloading. What he had not expected yesterday was how Meryl had looked almost insane. That shocked him to his core. She had grabbed him like a person fallen off the edge of the cliff, her fingers slipping on the edge, the terror in her eyes as she knew the fall she would have to take before dying. He had done the only thing he could think of, thrown her the life line he always used.

Right now, he felt like folding himself inside out in the crawling discomfort he felt. It had been too personal. It was as if she could now see the inside of his soul. As if she was somehow part of him, yet freely walking out there with a will of her own, able to betray him. He hugged his arms around his stomach as it ached. He had never felt like this before, the only thing that came close was when he had first been betrayed, when he and Knives had discovered Tessla. All the love and trust he had had for Rem had been called into question and he had wanted to kill himself to rid his heart of the awful sensation. He forced his mind through the agonizing memories, trying to work out parallels and potential paths ahead. No, he knew he was not clairvoyant, and even his best speculations were often wildly off. Rem had stopped him hurting himself. He had turned the knife on her, and in hurting her, had realized that he never, ever wanted to hurt her again. The fierce love he had for her remained, despite the betrayal. She had soothed him afterwards, explaining what had happened with such empty horror and guilt in her voice. It had hurt so much, but oddly, he was stronger for it. Perhaps that was the mistake he had made with Knives. His brother had always been more gentle and softer than he, and it had overwhelmed him. The fact that he had fainted had proved that. He knew how memories could resurface to cause damage later, so he had agreed with Rem to tell him what had happened. Knives had always been more intellectual, and understood the scientific interest, which was the angle Rem had taken. Had Knives in fact forgotten everything, or had he lied to hide the terror within? Not that it mattered now, the awful damage had been done, and had been worked out time and again across the last hundred and fifty years. The mistake he had made was not to tell his brother, but not to give his brother the chance to express it. He should have pounded him when Knives had shrugged him off. He had known something was up. Yep, that was the clarity of hindsight. What use was this sort of thinking now? It was too late. Too much had happened. Why was he thinking all these heavy thoughts this morning anyway?

Oh yes. He had been thinking about love and its manifestations and how it could be twisted and warped. And the consequences of actions. He smiled suddenly. Meryl had given him a very strange hug, and had reminded him to believe in the love Rem had. Yet it had not felt like that. It had felt like a very distant hug, as if she had been trying to communicate something else. It was as if she were trying to throw darts with a blindfold on without knowing where the board was. He marveled, the fact that she knew enough to be there with a dart in her hand in the first place was astonishing. He had hidden the core of his heart so well that he seldom found it unless in moments like these, he fell apart and had to scramble through pain to patch it all together again. He wondered what would happen if she succeeded in actually hitting the target. No, if he could not contact his own heart, how in the world could another manage it? He sighed, and felt melancholy at the thought.

He had badly misjudged her. This meant -if he was correct in following the extrapolations-, he had badly misjudged the fused entity. He had created a bridge between plants and humans. He had even been so confident as to openly declare that communication was the key, the fact that plants and people shared their experiences. Yet, Meryl had carried that memory of his, just one powerful memory and it had almost been her undoing. What had he scattered into the minds of the people on this world? How many minds had he undone in his optimism? He wiped at the tears in his eyes. Wolfwood had been right, so right, yet so devastatingly wrong. "We're different from God, right? We're not omnipotent. Our only alternative is to become demons…" Those words had been hammering around his scull since he had woken in the early hours of the morning. Wolfwood had challenged him according to the teachings of the Eye of Michael, or perhaps by the harsh teachings of his own life, to test his resolve as a pacifist. The priest had been speaking the truth, though Vash had challenged it. They were all different from God, as powerful as they were, plants were still lesser beings and certainly not omnipotent. And to become demons? He'd fought against that, so hard, but in his mistaken kindness, he'd done just what he had set out not to do. He folded over and rested his arms on his knees and his head on his arms; he could feel the tears soaking the sleeve of his coat. He tried so damn hard, but somehow, when he won a victory it was hollow. When he saved a life, he paid for it. When he tried to spread love and peace, blood and hatred followed him. Death and despair threatened to consume him if he did not keep moving. He could not do this any longer, but he could not simply lay down and die.

He thought then of the hug she had given him. The odd one, where she had put her cheek against the back of his neck, it sent shivers down his spine to feel the memory of her breath. Oh man, she had him. She'd sneaked up and placed the dart in the center of his heart without him realizing. She hadn't lifted the blindfold, she hadn't needed to, she'd known exactly the crux of it all. It had not been in the hug. It had been in that little phrase she had used earlier. It came back to forgiveness. Forgiveness, where he could not forgive himself. How had she spotted that? That was very dangerous ground, that involved God. And his relationship with God was circumspect at best. That omnipotent God. Damn. Damn. Bloody hell. Damn. Damn. Damn. He'd been pinned. For the first time in his entire life, he could not run any longer. There was nowhere to run. There was nowhere to hide. Simply by the fact that there was nowhere that God was not. Was that the purpose of that little woman? Of this whole intricate chase? Wolfwood had known. Oh, that priest had an even more twisted relationship with God, but he had known forgiveness. He had known how to forgive himself, he had not the one been calling God a liar all these years.

"Why me?" He whispered.

He lifted his head and stared out at the sun-bleached landscape. He had to be the most reluctant soul ever to acknowledge forgiveness. He felt empty. It was possibly a vast improvement on the agony that had been lurking in the bottom of his soul.

He could not sit here any longer. He wiped his face on his sleeve and hurried down the fire escape on the side of the building. He stopped at the hotel cloakroom where he had stashed his nag, collected the extra rounds of ammunition and a wad of double dollar bills to buy more and headed out to the shooting range. He had to get some practice in with the new arm gun or it would be awkward in a fight. Also, now that he knew Johnston was around, and from what Calor had told him about Teres, the man was a dead shot. He'd have to make sure he could handle Knives's gun. Anything would be better than thinking right now. Anything? He stared at the little figure already there, pacing out the distance to her target, then drawing and firing her derringers. Why? Why was she here? Actually, no, perhaps this was for the best. He was in a very odd mood, and she would be so wonderful to tease.

Vash walked down to the shooting range, listening to the rapid derringer fire. He had never seen Meryl practice. He leaned on the fence watching her. She was so intent on her quick draw that she did not see him. The proprietor wandered over and eyed him.

"It's free if you're using the old targets, but for a hundred we can set up new ones and supply you with ammo." He said.

Vash dug into his pocket and produced the required amount.

"What target are you wanting?"

"Human."

"That's all I've got. No one can tell us what you plants really look like." He gave Vash a grin and wandered back into the shed.

Vash stared after him appalled.

"H-hey, I, I never meant it that way!" He called after the man.

The man emerged with a target under his arm and grinned at him.

"I know what you meant, Vash. Don't look so upset."

Vash opened and closed his mouth a few times and then gave the proprietor a thumbs up when he had set the target at the right distance.

"What'll you be wanting?" He asked, returning to Vash's side.

"W-what's your name?" Vash asked, still flustered.

"Jake." He said. "What calibur?"

".45, long colt."

By this time Meryl had noticed him. She gathered up the derringers into her cape again and wandered over. For some reason she was not looking at him. He grinned at her anyway. He was so relieved. She was not afraid of him, she was afraid because she did not know what to do with the crazy memories he had shared with her. He wanted to assure himself it was not the same thing.

"Are you feeling a little better?" He asked.

She gave him the most hopeless stare he had ever seen.

"I'm catching the bus back to December tomorrow morning." She said in a hollow voice. "I have to warn everyone at Fifth Moon."

The smile dissolved off his face. He had forgotten, in his moment of realisation, that they had other problems aside from those between them.

"I," he took a breath as he fought between what he wanted to do and what was right, "I can't go with you. I have to go after the twins."

She smiled, then patted his arm and gave him a look of desperation.

"Please do."

The way she said it, it was as if she believed he were the only person capable of finding them. It was a wonderful confidence booster, and at the same time a deep worry. Were those Terrans that terrible? He had to speak to Chronica, but she was with Livio and they would only come into town once Meryl had gone. Or perhaps on the same bus she was to leave on.

Jake returned with a box of bullets for Vash and glanced at Meryl.

"More ammo?"

"Er-"

"Yes." Vash handed over the cash and Meryl gaped at him as Jake walked off.

"Vash! What are you doing?"

He grinned at her.

"You look like you could do with some more practice. Twelve of your guns were between eight _iches_ and a _fiel_ off."

She blinked at him.

"You, you were watching?"

"Yes. Do you know which guns those were?"

"Er..."

He laughed.

"Find out so we can get them repaired."

She glared at him.

"I'm not taking charity from you, Vash the Stampede."

"Aw, naw. I've got a little money right now and you've paid for a few hotel rooms for me, so it evens out."

She scowled at the ground as Jake returned with two boxes.

Vash took his time loading his revolver and the speed loaders he had in his pocket as Meryl crouched on the ground and sorted through her guns. Once she had them all back in their holsters she wandered back to her target and shot him a glance.

"I'm not competing against _you_." She muttered at him.

He laughed.

"'s not a competition. I just wanted to watch."

"Then why did you pay for your own target."

"I'll get to that." He said airily.

"Do you want to shoot my derringers seeing as you think I can't be trusted to find the ones that are off?" She grouched at him.

He laughed.

"Okay, okay, I'll do my own thing over here, shall I?" He gave her a wide eyed stare.

He laughed again as she rolled her eyes at him.

He took a deep breath and turned to his own target. She was a good distraction, he did not often had good distractions while practising. He fired off his entire box of ammunition by the time she had discovered three of her off derringers. She had only selected out two.

"Hey! Meryl..."

He fell silent as she eyed him.

"Er, you missed one?" He grinned sheepishly.

The look became a glare.

"Which one?"

He walked over and picked one up.

"And you saw that how?" She snatched it from him, loaded it and fired. She gave him a rather puzzled frown. "You were firing at your own target."

"Doesn't mean I can't watch you."

One day. Meryl told herself. She had to spend only one more day in the town.


	31. Chapter 31

_**Chapter 31**_

The day went excruciatingly slowly. Calor had awoken around noon and had come downstairs to sit in the shade and watch the repair men at work on the hotel windows. Vash had appeared not five minutes later to sit on the railing near her chair to chat. From what Meryl could hear it was something to do with how plants controlled their power. She and Milly were helping the glaziers install the glass windows. The town glazier had been reluctant to hire them until she and Milly had completed a window each and he had inspected them critically and huffed on his pipe until he could stall no longer.

"Not bad for office girls. Okay, you're hired."

Meryl then saw him wink at Milly, who smiled happily. She hid her own smile, what would she do without Milly? But the down side of having a job, was that she could not leave. She had three windows on the long hotel veranda still to do and Calor had now waved Abe over to join the conversation, they would not be leaving any time soon.

The afternoon had mostly gone by the time the three plants had broken up their discussion. She and Milly had moved on to repairing the windows of the windows of the boarding house beside the hotel. It was a long day, and she was already feeling the exertion. She hoped she would sleep well that night, she longed for the oblivion of a good night's sleep.

* * *

Vash ambled down the road, back into town. After asking Calor about what the little flames that had appeared around Abe had been, she had spent half the afternoon giving him and Abe a lecture on life fire. If that fire that burned could be measured, the longer it burned the more days it took of the end of their life. It was a warning to others and to the plant silly enough to try and use their powers while so debilitated. Vash had felt a cold chill run through him. He was not afraid of death, but he could not die now. Not while there was so much yet still to do. That scent on the scarf, it was Knives. It could be no other, but his brother used to empty towns to alert him to his presence. Not drop hints like that and dump him in peculiar places. It was too confusing to work it out. Sitting on the dune had only made him hot and sandy. The only positive thing was that he'd seen the bus approaching. He was so restless; once Livio arrived, they could move. He always planned better when on the move.

Vash was playing with the town kids when a shadow fell over them. He twisted his head around and peered up from under a pile of bodies.

"Livio!" He exclaimed.

"Need some help?" Livio laughed.

Chronica walked up to stand beside him and Vash almost felt the wash of fear and sorrow, it was clear in her eyes. She was so broken she could hardly contain herself. Not a good sign.

"Okay kids, game's over." He said, trying to keep his voice steady.

"Hey, no fair!"

Livio reached out and lifted two kids off him with no apparent difficulty. They were the two largest boys there. The rest of the gang got the message.

"Tomorrow!" They insisted and retreated across the square.

Vash got to his feet and brushed himself off. The sand of the desert stuck to him and made his shirt more ochre than white.

"I'm sorry." Vash murmured unable to meet Chronica's gaze. "I'll help."

"Thank you." Chronica said as Meryl, Milly and Abe walked up.

"We returned the truck to Lina. She looked ready to leave; she and Marlon were arming the truck when we left. Lina gave me this for you, Meryl."

Meryl took the letter and opened it while Chronica chatted with Milly.

"For Meryl, Milly and Abe of Fifth Moon.

We have received the warning and Mick and I are going into hiding. We will send mail from time to time. Thank you for all the work you have done to help us. Now clean up your damned mess. Lina and Mick."

Lina had drawn a little picture of herself chasing Meryl with a large sledgehammer with the caption: "Or else."

Meryl smiled crookedly and passed the message on to Milly.

"Who warned them?" She asked.

"What's that?" Vash peered over Milly's shoulder curiously, then grinned. "Oh good. Kail's message got through!"

"What message?"

Vash frowned at her.

"We sent a message to Marlon so he could warn Lina. We didn't want to send it to Lina directly in case it was intercepted."

"What happened?" Livio asked. "All they could tell us was that something bad had happened to Fifth Moon."

"Teres, one of the plants we had working for us, betrayed us. It turns out he was Johnston."

"Teres!" Chronica spat in fury. "But we had him, right under our noses. He knows everything!"

"I know." Meryl said trying to keep the tremor out of her voice. "We discovered this yesterday. I'm taking the bus back to December tomorrow, sorry I can't help you."

Chronica clenched her fist and Vash reached out as he felt the power build around her. She blinked as he touched her and shook her head and took a sharp breath then let it out slowly.

(Thanks.) She said shakily. "Meryl, what of the other plants you had working for you? Abe and Calor?"

"They're both here. I think they are at the hotel we're staying at. Calor identified Teres, she's the most upset about this."

"I need to speak to them."

.

Vash watched as Meryl and Milly took the luggage and walked Chronica back to the hotel, explaining what had happened.

Livio turned to Vash. Then he smiled slowly and gently bumped his fist against his friend's solar plexus.

"So it's finally happened."

Vash blinked at him, puzzled.

"What?"

Livio tilted his head and gazed at him.

"After all those years of searching, you finally found peace."

Vash stared, a little stunned.

"It's … It's visible?"

Livio laughed.

"Of course you idiot. Anyone who has known you would be able to see it. It hurt being around you, you know, that hollow emptiness you carried. Now we can have some real fun."

"What?" Vash followed him, bewildered.

"Celebrating! I haven't had a drink in five days and," he glanced at Chronica's retreating back and lowered his voice, "she's been very moody. I need to relax, get the desert out my throat! You my friend can tell me about Johnston!"

Vash scowled.

"He was right here and he got away."

Livio grinned fiercely.

"Good, it looks like we both need that drink. Where's the best saloon?"

.

"Oh man, the peace is weird." Vash rubbed at his chest. "It is so light, yet it sticks to everything."

"Mmh?" Livio sipped his beer.

"I don't deserve it." He finished hollowly, that had been bothering him.

"No one does." Livio laughed. "That's why it's called grace. If you want something to really mess your mind up, go and study that."

"Huh?" He checked the level in the whiskey bottle, no he had not had that much, what had Livio said. "No one?"

"Everyone hunts love and peace like you, just not everyone makes such an embarrassing scene about it."

"Hey! It's good stuff to spread around, don't knock it."

"Yes it is. How does it feel to have found half of it?"

"Weird." He reflected. "Good weird."

"How goes the hunt for the other half?"

"Uhhh." For some reason his ears felt like they were on fire. He could not get the picture of Meryl out of his head. He laughed sheepishly. "You know my luck; the ladies take one look and vanish!"

Livio raised his glass.

"Here's to the greatest bachelor in the world, and now that that had been declared, watch it, pal. Every woman within a hundred iles will be on your tail!"

"H- hey!"

Livio laughed.

"It's about time a young man like you settled down, grew fat and had some kids."

"What? Sheesh, I had it enough with your kids! Er… Sorry." He twisted the shot glass around in his fingers. "I'm sorry."

They both stared at their drinks.

"Vash, Chronica and I did a small tour of some of the abandoned South Cornelia Region, apparently some of the ghost towns, are no longer quiet as empty as they should be." Livio said quietly.

"Those were Knives's hunting grounds." Vash muttered darkly.

"I know." Livio murmured. "We both know them well. Should make it interesting trying to catch Johnston, yes?"

"I don't like the association with the area." Vash grumbled. "What's the Eye of Michael up to?"

"Same old." Livio shrugged. "They're a bit wary of me. I'm technically banished, but I know too much and am too powerful for them to take me out. They haven't dared come within a hundred iles of December since I sent them packing the last time."

"The same old?" Vash said in horror.

"Yes. They train assassins. Most are like me, modified hybrids, doomed to live a half life."

"I thought that they'd collapse after Knives…" Vash breathed in horror.

"That is a little naïve." Livio said with cold bitterness. "It's a cult. The only way to take them out is to destroy what funds them, or what they worship. As half the plant engineers on this planet are unknowingly part of their congregation, and the plants are what they worship, I'd say unless you're planning a double genocide, you haven't got much hope in stopping them."

"I'm a plant." Vash mused aloud, trying to see where that idea could lead.

Livio laughed.

"Oh they know all about you." He said darkly. "You're their version of the devil. Portraying love and peace, while sowing destruction and terror in your wake."

"What does that make you?" Vash asked, peeved.

"The devil's advocate."

They sat in silence and sipped at their drinks.

"Well! Doesn't this look like a funeral party!" (What are we mourning? The loss of a few pints? I've some more if it helps!) Abe dumped a bottle of rum on the table with three glasses. "I thought we'd best liven it up a bit." He grabbed a chair from the next table and sat down. "How about you teach me a No Man's Land drinking game."

"With rum?" Livio eyed it.

"Well, you've already got beer and whiskey, and Meryl and Calor had me promise I won't touch gin for a week, so rum it is."

"The ladies made you promise what? Why?" Livio laughed incredulously.

"I messed up a few times, so they're worried about me, telling me off is their way of letting me know. So not drinking gin is my way of saying I understand. I never had any gin, mores the pity, and I'm sure both of them know it!"

"Oh what a tangled web we weave…" Vash murmured under his breath.

"Poetry, from you?" Abe said and pulled the cork on the rum bottle. "I suppose you are a romantic at heart."

A what? He had meant the line as a mild warning. Vash hurriedly ran through the story the poem presented, he had never seen it in that light; it had just been one of the many things he had voraciously read as a child. He had liked the majesty of the knights, though not their deeds.

"So, who's game?" Abe asked picking up the bottle hopefully.

Vash was sure Livio had chosen this particular drinking game because of Abe's Terran accent. It was a simple one, but good enough as drinking games went. One had to pronounce tongue twisters, and the more words one got wrong the more shots one downed. Abe had had double what they had had, simply because of the way he said things. It was funny, and got funnier the longer the night went on. The last thing he recalled was collapsing in giggles at Abe's hissing in trying to pronounce a sequence of 's's and failing.

.

He woke to a hammer blow to his mind. He leaped to his feet in horror. Abe was gaping at him, stunned as sober as he was. They searched the bar for others reactions. Calor was leaning against the wall, clutching at her head. She staggered over to them and sank into the chair Vash had just vacated.

Livio clutched his head in his hands and groaned.

"What was that?" Vash asked, after watching Calor and Abe share a look of horror. He was feeling a creeping dread. None of the humans seemed aware of it.

"A bloody raw mind search." Calor growled. "They're hunting for someone. Not any of us, or we'd probably be dead."

"Who are _they_?" Vash asked, knowing but wanting confirmation.

"It feels like Ezrah's work. Damn, but that was powerful." Abe rubbed his head. "What is the fool doing? Now every plant on the planet will know he's up to something."

"I think that might just be the point." Calor said darkly. "Vash, I wasn't going to tell you this, but I think you should know. They're hunting your brother. They want to work out how he stopped tall hammer. It's why the Terran's want you; they think you might also know."

"It do, it's no secret." He said with a shrug. "He watched the way the gates opened and simply mimicked it and nullified it."

Abe and Calor stared at him.

"You can do that?"

"No. My technique is very different. But Knives always had a good grasp of the whole of things. He thinks big, and intricate."

"Do you know where he is?" Calor asked.

"No." He said after a pause. "He's probably dead. But if he is not, I haven't been able to sense him." He had also not been leaving his usual calling card of empty towns, or mass killings, but Vash saw no need to mention that. Nor was he mentioning the confusing appearance of that scarf.

"You mean," Abe whispered, "he took out tall hammer without the help of computers?"

"Yes. Technology just slows the process down a bit. I like the interface, but Knives prefers a more hands on approach."

"So what is your approach?" Calor asked curiously.

He smiled at her.

"Ask Chronica." He looked at the two plants, who frowned at him. "I had to stop her when she tried to take out Knives. She can explain it; I don't have the words you would understand. What should we do about this situation?"

"Try us?"

"Huh?" He found their curious stares a little intimidating. He scratched the back of his neck. "Ah, I made a gate bullet and shot the charge she shot at us out of the sky."

"A what?"

"A bullet?" He dug a shell out of his pocket. They both stared at it, bemused.

"Uh, huh. Even though you are a plant, you're still a native." Calor grumbled.

Abe took the bullet and frowned at it as he turned it over in his fingers.

"A bullet." He mused. "But there wasn't only one gate bullet. You made a whole lot."

"Oh yes." Vash nodded.

Abe handed the bullet back with an impressed smile.

"That solves that mystery." He grinned at Calor. "Remember those brief spikes of gate readings we kept getting but could not source? That was him firing bullets."

Calor's mouth fell open.

"Did you enhance the bullet in any way?"

"Er, I'm not sure what you mean." Vash said. "I simply made a tiny gate capsule and it opened when I activated it or the bullet hit something."

"Hang on." Calor reached over and grabbed his right arm.

Vash didn't know what she did, but he felt a rush of warmth up his arm. He gave a shocked yell and yanked his arm away from her. Knives had done that to him twice.

"W-what do you think you're doing?" He demanded, backing away, cradling his arm.

Abe reached out and grabbed his coattail. Vash halted but watched them uncertainly.

"Relax, we're all in the same boat, we can't use our power any more than you can." He turned to Calor. "What's his rating?"

Calor did not hear Abe, her hand was still held in the air where she had been grasping Vash.

"Calor?" Abe nudged her foot under the table.

"Abe." She murmured softly. "He has a heaven gate."

"No way." Abe breathed, gaping at him. "Hey man, I knew you were something, but damn, a heaven gate!"

"What is that?"

They all glanced around at Livio who sat watching them with his hands on either side of his head as if they were all that was holding his brains inside.

"Natives." Calor murmured.

"Yet somehow we can best you at talking." Livio laughed softly and gave Abe a wry smirk. "What's so special about a heaven gate?"

"Where to start?" Abe exclaimed.

"Answer the question." Livio said with a slight laugh.

"It's well, it's, um, wow. Really? Vash can I check?"

"No!" Vash clutched at his right arm and tugged his coattail out of Abe's grasp.

"I won't touch you again." Calor said and folded her arms. "Come sit, there are some basic things we have to explain to you."

Vash took a chair from the next table and sat down out of reach of both Abe and Calor.

"Whoo, what did you do to scare him so bad?" Livio asked.

"Vash, I'm not trying to activate your power against your will. In fact I can show you how to protect yourself against that."

"Can you?" Vash begged brokenly.

"Yes." Calor held out an open palm to him. "Sit with us, we won't touch you, promise." She eyed Abe until he sighed regretfully.

"Promise."

Vash scooted closer, but left enough room for a rapid exit.

"You have a heaven gate. There are three rankings, I suppose you could call it, of gate strength. An earth gate, a sky gate and a heaven gate. Earth gate's are the most common, that's Abe and I, we both have earth gates. Sky gates are several degrees more powerful. Chronica has a sky gate, and it is estimated with the destruction your brother caused that he might have a sky gate too. But a heaven gate, well there have only been six plants in recorded history who have one. You would be the seventh, if you'd let us confirm what I think it is. At your full height of power you could have turned the entire planet to magma."

Vash felt his stomach curdle in horror.

"He made that crater on the Fifth Moon." Livio said in what Vash thought was an unnecessarily cheerful tone.

"That was you?" Calor said impressed. "Is that why Meryl chose that name, er..."

Vash was looking down at his lap, his right hand clenched in his prosthetic left.

"Vash, it's an amazing thing." Calor whispered. "You don't have to be so upset."

"He didn't do it by choice." Livio explained quietly. "His brother forced him."

"Oh. Oh! Is that why you didn't want me touching you? Oh, Vash, sorry! Hey, hey, look at me. Sorry." She patted him on the knee.

He raised his head and smiled.

"It's okay."

"It's bloody not. I might have black hair, but I can see what you're feeling now. Oh come here." Vash tried to wriggle out of her clumsy hug and ended up pinned to the chair with Calor on his lap. She was hugging the chair and him.

"If you'd been born on Earth you'd have served under the Emperor, you know? All the heaven's gates do."

"An Emperor?" Livio stopped laughing at Vash's predicament with Calor, and spoke with surprise. "I thought you were a federation."

"We are." Calor explained. "But the Emperor still rules, his is mostly a ceremonial position. The president is elected and runs the senate in his stead, but he's the key figure for continuity in what can be an unstable political environment at times."

Vash put his arms gingerly around her and Calor neatly slipped off his lap and went back to her chair. For some reason he felt a little cheated, but was glad it had worked.

"But Vash is here and he has black hair, and will go crazy according to legend." Livio pointed out.

"Bull." Abe muttered. "That's some crap Johnston has been peddling. All the black hair is, is, well it's kind of like humans with white hair, they are near death. Except with plants that could take another few hundred years if they're careful."

"Few hundred, Abe, no one knows. Be honest, please, all Vash'll ever know is what he hears from us."

"Ah." Abe muttered. "The oldest plant I know with black hair is a hundred and twelve, and he's had black hair for the past forty years. Does that help?"

Vash shrugged.

"But we haven't told you the best part!" Calor said, leaning forward on the table. "Heaven's gate plants have this trick. They can take in energy like orb plants. Abe and I, we can create energy from what we have stored within, just like you've been doing. But, you should be able to take in energy and store it, even if you can't create energy any more. That's why I want to get you checked out… hmm we'd have to sneak on board a Pieces of Earth ship for that though." She gazed contemplatively at him, pondering how to do that.

Vash hunched back in his chair and clenched his right hand into a fist and opened it again.

"No." He said softly.

"What?" Calor breathed. "Man, you have the chance to wield a little power again." Her voice was wistful with envy.

"I don't want it. I never wanted it."

"You might not have the choice." Livio murmured. "Think about it, Vash." He said.

Vash raised his head with anguish in his eyes.

Livio held up his hands in a placating manner.

"You don't have to do anything right at this moment, but think about it. There might be a situation in which you need it, just saying."

Vash reached over, picked up the rum bottle and downed the last of it in two gulps.

There was an uncomfortable silence as Vash put it back down and smiled at them. It was his best smile, why were they all looking at him with such devastated expressions?

"I say we get some sleep." Abe grumbled. "We need to get moving in the morning. I'll go with Livio and see what Chronica has to say. And Vash, warn the girls we're out of this town at dawn."

Vash walked out of the Saloon into the cold night with Calor trailing after him. Ah, yes. The girls. He really did not want them along for this leg of the trip. But Meryl was going to December, that was a good thing, perhaps he could convince Milly to accompany her. He twitched away as Calor reached out to him and she stepped back, her hands raised.

"Sorry." She murmured, her breath forming clouds in the cold air.

He folded his arms around himself and hunched his shoulders and walked on. She trailed a few paces behind him. He could hardly think for how afraid he was. The loss of his powers had been the most freeing thing he had ever experienced. He still had horrific nightmares, but on waking had always known, never again. But now, this. He did not want to believe it. He would definitely not get it tested, oh no. Perhaps Calor was mistaken; perhaps he was just like Knives. He was his twin, after all. Yes, perhaps he was. He breathed out a little easier. Calor must have been mistaken, there was no way he would wield power like that ever again.

.

"Are you sure you can't go with Meryl?" Vash pleaded as they waited beside the bus. Inside Meryl was trying to negotiate a seat by the window.

Milly tilted her head to look at him.

"Mister Vash, are you _trying_ to get rid of me?" She asked and pouted slightly. Oh, but that look tugged at his heartstrings. The answer was yes, but he did not have the heart to tell her that.

"You'll get rid of me in September. We're so close now, it makes sense for me to visit home, and then return to December after that."

Which was the reason he was not being as stubborn as he could be in insisting that she return. He put his hands in his pockets and smiled weakly at the pout on her face.

Milly gazed up at him, a dangerously thoughtful expression on her face.

"Is that why you were so pleased Meryl was leaving? We are good at fighting and helping. You know we are Mister Vash."

He hunched his shoulders slightly. He knew that all too well, but he did not want such precious friends caught up in this.

"It's like you're scared again." Milly said with a smile as she waved at Meryl who has settled in at the window seat and waved down to all of them. "You know, like the time you yelled at us not to follow you? Except this time you're trying to be clever about it and you're being nice."

Vash felt like the fraud he felt he was. How was it that Milly always saw right through him? A thought then occurred to him.

"Are they rebuilding September? I heard they had left it to the sand after that last storm covered half the town?"

"Mister Vash, don't believe all the nonsense they put in the papers. Only the north quarter is covered in sand, and only the west quarter is inhabited, as they could only supply the city with two plants instead of four. My family are farmers, so we live out of town, and almost all of the farming community has returned to their lands. My brother is in charge there. You'll like it. We have a geoplant that Knives missed. That was how they survived."

Vash found himself staring at Milly who waved happily to Meryl as the bus pulled away. The geoplants. He had forgotten they were of a different variety. Knives had only gone after the power plants. How many varieties of plants were there? According to Calor he was one of three distinct types of independents. Oh no, he did not want to even _think_ about that. He turned and raised his hand to Meryl as she stuck her head out of the window to wave. For a moment her eyes caught his and her face fell. Oh man, what expression did he have on his face? He hastily pulled up a smile, but Meryl did not smile back. She stared at him until the bus drove out of sight. Beside him Milly waved and cried.

* * *

A/N:

Character recap for those who are struggling to keep them straight:

OC's:  
Terran Plants working for 5th Moon (Meryl's company) : Calor, Abe, Teres (aka Johnston - a No Man's land Federal Marshal)  
Other Terran Plants: Mutare, Rimor (at December Orphanage since December Evac)  
Ezrah - works for Johnston  
Those now dead: Luctus, Willa  
Half plants: Mick - Lina's kid; Jasmine, Douglas - Livio's kids

Manga:  
Livio - ex Eye of Michael assassin (same as Wolfwood)  
Chronica - Terran Plant (Fought Knives with her space ship in the last battle)  
Luida - in charge of the community at Seeds  
Kail - designs and makes Vash's equipment at Seeds  
Mark, Karin - Milly & Meryl's coworkers at Bernadelli Insurance

Anime & Manga:  
Vash, Meryl, Milly  
Frank Marlon (Gunsmith)  
Lina, Sheryl (Vash stayed with them in Kasted City)

... I am sure I have left off some, but hope this clears things up a little.

Thank you to everyone who reads here! Special thanks for those who take the time to review! Love sharing the Trigun Awesomeness with you guys! We're almost half way, so thanks for sticking this out week after week! (:

JasperK


	32. Chapter 32

_**Chapter 32**_

"All goodbye's said?" Chronica asked Milly as they returned to the hotel.

"Yes." Milly sniffed. "Miss Meryl is going to miss us. I must get home and to December as soon as I can. Sorry I can't come all the way with you, Chronica."

"I understand." Chronica murmured.

"But you're all invited to the farm." Milly smiled and wiped at her tears.

"We'll see." Chronica nodded. "Get your bags and load the tomas's, we're leaving now."

With their luggage loaded on tomas back, they walked out into the desert.

"Why are we walking, Mister Vash?" Milly asked as she trotted her tomas beside him.

Because I'm rubbish at riding tomas'? Vash thought to himself.

"Livio says he's to meet a contact near September, and we've created too much notice in this town. It is best that our departure and destination remain vague. If we go by foot they won't be able to track us so well."

Milly turned in her seat and looked back at the broad trail behind them.

"I could track that in a sand storm." She observed with a laugh.

"What would you do?" Chronica asked, overhearing Milly.

"Drag a weighted boom behind us. We can't entirely cover our tracks, but we can cover how many and who. Mister Vash, I can track you anywhere, you have very distinctive boots."

"Whaa?" Vash hopped on one foot and inspected the underside of his boot. Chronica reached out and nudged him with a laugh; he hopped and stumbled back onto both feet.

"She has a good idea." Chronica observed. "Livio might have some chain we could use. Let's call a halt and see what we can do to cover our tracks."

.

Half an hour later they were on the move again. A boom made of chains and poles lashed together now dragged behind Milly's tomas, the last in line. The rest of them walked in single or double file ahead of her. Vash found himself in the uncomfortable position of being behind Calor and in front of Chronica. Calor took that moment to tell Chronica of the discovery she had made the night before.

"A heaven gate?" Chronica breathed. "Here? I've met two, and they are seriously scary. Their auras are totally different."

"I ain't no heaven gate. Can't do nothing no more." Vash declared and put up both his hands, no more thankful than now that he had black hair. They could ask for no more from him, as he could not deliver it.

"And he's like that." Calor complained. "Wants nothing to do with it."

"Are you sure he's not an upper sky?"

"Could be." Calor shrugged. "He's so scared of me he won't let me near him."

"Scared?" Vash protested indignantly.

Calor turned and gave him a sad pitying stare. He shoved his hands in his pockets and grinned at her, and changed the subject.

"Chronica, you never told us what you and Livio found in the Cornelia towns."

Chronica sighed with enough vehemence to cause Abe and Milly to come closer to listen.

"We found empty towns. And then, when we rode away, we saw lights and could pick up radiation and heat signatures of people, and not just a few, it was almost as if the whole town had returned. However, when we went back there was nothing. Camping in the towns at night was creepy, as if something from beyond the town limits were watching us, but when we moved into the desert once more, nothing followed us and nothing stopped us. Eerie."

"How many towns had this phenomenon?" Abe asked.

"Three, of the twelve we visited."

"Any commonalities?" Abe mused.

"A water source. Those three towns had natural water sources. The other towns shipped their water in, or it travelled in by clever aqueduct construction. Livio came up with the idea that the water is haunted, but I am sure there is a more intriguing reason than supernatural activity."

"Ghosts are fascinating." Milly insisted. "I've never seen one myself."

"Trust me, you don't want to." Abe grumbled.

Vash smiled as they argued back and forth about the existence, or not, of ghosts and where the best places to see them were and what to do if one did see a ghost. Though what Abe called ghosts, he knew, was something plants could naturally do. In certain places he could catch glimpses of what had happened in the past, a replay of shocking events in the blink of an eye. Such was the burden of his people, it seemed. The more time he spent among independents, the more he realised that they were very much like humans, yet, not. Together they had something other, which only another plant could understand. He was both comforted and disturbed by this new identity into which he was inadvertently growing by remaining in their presence. He was content at this time to remain, if they only would not discuss such disturbing possibilities concerning him.

.

September

They met Livio's contact outside a small hamlet after two weeks camped in the desert. There was a Saloon and a general store, but as it was an ile's detour up a hill, they did not enter the hamlet. A truck was parked in the shade of a dune, it was large enough to carry the three tomas's they had with them, as well as them and all their luggage. Beside it waited a young man with light brown hair and blue eyes. Vash grinned as soon as he set his eyes on him. But before he could ask, Milly launched herself off her tomas and sprinted over to him.

"Zach!" She shrieked and the young man caught her and swung her around a she hugged him. Vash noticed he was half a head taller than her, almost his own height.

"ZT." Livio mused. "Zachary Thompson, I suppose I should have guessed, you living in this area."

Zachary disentangled Milly.

"This is my baby sister." He said with a slight blush.

"And this is my big brother." She grinned. "Zach, meet my friends. "That's Mister Livio."

"Mills, I know Livio."

"Hah, yes! And that's Miss Calor, and Miss Chronica and Mister Abe and Mister Vash, they're all plants."

"Hey Vash, we get loads of news about you back home, the family will be pleased to finally meet you."

Vash blinked, he had forgotten about the Milly Monthly. She _still_ sent it?

"We're staying at the farm tonight. Will you be there?" Milly asked.

"Sure." Zachery replied easily. "Just don't go via the city, there are some wanted posters up for you, Vash. $$ 200 billion. I think the Feds and the Terrans got together on this bounty. It'll be enough to tempt most, and September isn't the place it once was."

"Thanks for the tip." Livio said.

"Your face looks familiar too." Zachery said, frowning at Abe. "If they have a wanted poster of you, I'll bring it when I come tonight."

Abe's face fell.

"If he's up, then I should be too." Calor grumbled. "I'll bet you anything Teres handed our names to the Federal government."

"Well, Livio knows how to keep a low profile, so you're in good hands with him. Only let my little sister drive, 'cause she knows the desert around here like the back of her hand."

"Where are you going Zach?" Milly asked.

"I'm borrowing your tomas and heading for September. I told dad I was out to meet friends and he gave me a shopping list. I was going to take the truck into town, but seeing as who you all are, that's a bad idea. Take the route past the surfing dunes, they have shifted a few hundred yarz or so, but the pillar rock is still a landmark."

"Okay."

.

Vash walked over to Livio as Zachery helped Milly offload her baggage and the boom from her tomas.

"How do you know him?" He asked curiously. They had both been holding out on each other back at Marlon's place. Vash wondered how much Marlon knew.

Livio laughed, but it sounded forced.

"He's a weapons expert, builds specialised stuff for the Eye of Michael. He owns the land the Thompson farm is on…" Livio paused, then said in an undertone. "He owns a geoplant. Vash, he might be all friendly and Milly's brother, but if he can see a profit in turning us in, he might just do so. And if three of you have prices on your head, well..."

"Does Milly know this?" Vash said, shocked.

Livio shrugged.

"I only know him because I am Eye of Michael. Perhaps he keeps it secret from the family, I don't know. If he does, he'll keep quiet and we're safe. If not, well, we can defend ourselves if the need requires it."

"I'd rather not." Vash sighed. "Why can't life be simple?"

Livio laughed genuinely at that.

"You and I, simple? We'd be so bored we'd go looking for trouble."

Vash grimaced.

"Honestly, all I am looking for is love and peace."

Livio laughed again, this time lasciviously.

"You let the love ride the bus back to December, you idiot."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Vash insisted stubbornly and walked away before Livio could make any more far too astute remarks. Sheesh, how was it that someone else could see he liked her? He had not meant to make it obvious in any way. That would only put her in greater danger.

.

Vash was glad he had chosen to ride on the truck bed, instead of in the cab with Milly, Chronica and Calor. He, Abe and Livio had a fantastic time yelling their heads off as Milly literally dune surfed them across the desert. He knew she drove wild and fast, but only now had an appreciation for the skill she had. He had seen many a car overturned on the dunes from reckless driving. Milly always seemed to get just enough to tip them, but never quite did. It made for a lot of delightful screaming. They were laughing with relief and adrenaline by the time she pulled onto the road that wound up towards a walled area a few hundred yarz distant.

"Oh man, I loved that!" Abe breathed and clung to the roll bar as if that was all that was holding him up. Livio laughed, but was gripping the roll bar so hard his knuckles were white. Now that they had straightened out, Vash became starkly aware of why he didn't like moving vehicles all that much.

"I think I'm going to be sick." He announced.

"Not on us man!" Livio gave him a light shove with his elbow.

Vash stumbled, then leaped and landed on the ground beside the truck. He let the momentum tumble him and when he thudded into a sand dune and winded himself, he curled over and threw up. Great. What a way to arrive.

He got to his feet and walked after the truck that had stopped, heads were peering out of the cab. Milly was standing on the driver's door window and staring at him in horror over the cab roof.

"Mister Vash!" I'm so sorry!" She called.

Livio leaped down and ran over.

"Hey man, I never meant to throw you off!" He exclaimed in dismay.

"I wanted off." Vash grinned weakly.

"Honest, I'm real sorry, man."

"No harm done." Vash smiled. He had been lucky; at worst, he had winded himself. His armour had protected him from grazes and scratches.

They climbed back onto the truck bed and drove into the compound. No one guarded the gate, though a large sign painted on it said "Close the damned gate, or YOU are catching any tomas that gets out."

Milly giggled.

"That's dad." She explained. "Once some reps left the gate open after they had visited. Dad was furious when they left the gate open and half the breeding herd got loose, so he drove into September and found them and made them catch the tomas's that escaped. They learned to close the gates after that."

They drove through five gates before they even came within view of the farmhouses. Although, they saw the occasional herd of tomas's on distant dunes. The farmhouses were a group of buildings in a semi circular cluster. They were built much like the city houses: flat roof, small windows, and roomy inside. Milly pulled up the truck in front of the double story house, which had columns supporting the upper balcony. Three people were gathered for tea on the balcony, and they peered down at them. The rest of the folk emerged from other buildings around the farm yard.

"Mum! Uncle Sal!" Milly leaned out the driver's window and waved at them. The third person stood staring at them with her mouth open. It was Lina.

"Well I'll be." A gray haired woman with the same open friendly face as Milly stood up and set down her tea on the table beside her. "My baby Milly, returned home! I was so worried, we only had your letters to assure us that you lived through the war! Could you not have returned home just once to reassure us?"

"I couldn't Mum!" Milly said cheerfully. "Miss Meryl needed me! She still does. I am just very lucky that my friends were coming this way and I could travel with them."

"Your friends." Her mother said faintly and suddenly everyone was looking at Vash. He grinned his best cheesy smile.

"Oh Milly, you brought your work with you?" Mrs Thompson said in disappointment.

Vash choked and struggled to voice his indignation as Livio canned himself.

"He's a friend, it's okay Mum. Zach is coming tonight too; we borrowed the truck from him."

Lina perked up.

"You're working with Zach now?" Mrs Thompson said faintly.

"Oh no! I'm still working with Miss Meryl. We're based in December as usual. You should come and visit, they have three plants there now, the city is almost back to normal."

"Er, Milly, they just bombed it." Livio reminded her.

"Oh yeah. You can't come Mum, I forgot they just bombed it."

Mrs Thompson shook her head.

"So I heard. I suppose you will all be wanting to freshen up and then have tea?"

"Oh yes!" Milly exclaimed excitedly, then turned to the others. "We have the best cream and scones in the district. Mum has a special recipe!"

.

Vash fluffed Lina's hair as he reached her.

"Good hiding place." He murmured.

She glowered at him, trying to straighten her hair. Mick clung to her skirt and peered up at Vash.

(Hey kid!)

"You talk funny, Mister."

"Mick, this is Vash…" Lina began.

Mick stared at him and Vash snatched him into the air.

"My you've grown since I last saw you."

"I never saw you ever." Mick insisted. "Mum told me all the stories though."

Vash gave a slightly sheepish knowing laugh as Lina shot him a very innocent expression.

So it was that Vash found himself perched on a spindly chair beside Abe and Livio, drinking flavoured tea and eating scones that leaked cream and jam all over his fingers. Mick sat on his knee making a sticky mess all over himself with some delight.

"Is this all they have?" Livio muttered holding up the clear tea and peering into it.

"It's a farm house." Vash said. "Beer is for the evenings, and if they're like most, it will be home brewed and good."

Livio perked up at that and drank his tea.

"These scones are really good." He said with his mouth full.

"Says the man who has eaten six already." Abe laughed. "I've never been on a farm. Do you think Milly will show us around?"

"Mister Stampede?"

Vash licked the cream off his thumb and looked up.

"Just Vash, thanks!" He said to Mrs Thompson.

"Mister Vash." She said formally. "We have heard much of your exploits, and have been wondering something. Did you really try to ride a sandworm?"

Of all the things she could have asked, Vash marvelled.

"Did you really?" Mick gaped at him in awe.

"Yes." Vash said brightly. He did not mind discussing that.

"It's just that we know very little about sandworms, this not being the area for them." Mrs Thompson explained. "Only, within the last year we have been spotting them from the outer ranges. They never came in so close before, and we're a little worried. How do you keep them away?"

There were shells that could stun them, Vash knew. Most of the time they just injured the worm, which made it angry and an angry worm usually trampled anything that moved. But where there were worms, there was the hive mind.

"Have you noticed an increase in insect activity?" He asked.

"We have more night moths than in previous years, why?" She asked. "Do they have anything to do with the sandworms?"

Vash kept quiet, he did not know how much Chronica reported back to the Terran's, and the hive mind was something he was not sure he could explain very well either.

"No, but sometimes if the sandworms nest there are more sun wasps. They're parasitic; they live in the worm's skin."

"No, we've not had any wasps."

"Then the worms you see aren't looking for new breeding grounds, they should move on when they have drunk their fill from the underground aqueducts."

"They're stealing water?" Her voice was harsh.

Vash shrugged.

"You're stealing their land. It evens out."

"You have a peculiar understanding of possession, Mister Vash."

"They were here before us." Vash explained. "And in all likelihood, will be here after us. But it would be a good idea not to try hunt them, they should move off on their own."

.

Bothered by the report of the sandworms, Vash woke before sunrise, leaving the others sleeping. He had guessed correctly, they had served excellent beer that evening as well as a very hearty meal. He hadn't slept well, being in the same room as another plant, even if it was Abe, but he had managed to rest. He walked out over the lands and was wandering down a road when Zachery drove up beside him in his truck. Chronica and Milly were with him.

"Hey man, get on, you'll take all day to get to the outer range if you walk."

Vash swung himself onto the truck bed and Zachery drove on.

They arrived at a wide open plain half an hour later as the suns rose. Zachery sat on top of the cab with binoculars and Milly sat beside him with a camera, taking photographs. Vash walked over to the nearest hillock a few yarz from the road and scrambled to the top of it. He tensed when Chronica followed him. But all she did was shade her eyes from the sun and peer out.

"Can't see anything." She muttered after a while. "I can't sense any sand worms either."

Vash blinked, feeling a little silly, he hadn't even tried that. He reached out, but the only living he could find was Milly, Zachery and Chronica.

"Yeah."

Chronica shrugged, a little disappointed and patted him on the back. Vash flinched away from her, but it was too late. He felt it worse this time, worse than Calor's touch had been. Somehow Chronica had poured fire into his bones with that touch. He staggered away down the hill, dazed and trying to re-orientate himself. He reached the bottom only then realising he was not in danger of using his power. In fact, aside from a slight adrenaline rush that had his heart beating like mad, he felt fine. He glared up at her.

"W-what did you do?" He asked edgily.

Chronica still stood on top of the hillock, and was staring slack mouthed at him.

"We should have been hunting you." She breathed.

"What?" Vash exclaimed, his hand twitching to his revolver. "You still with the Terrans?"

"No, you idiot!" Chronica snapped out of it. "Vash, you're a heaven's gate. If you weren't you would have just felt the power. But look at you." She smiled, delighted.

"Look at me?" He exclaimed, trying to look at himself, his coat looked the same and he had his boots on.

He almost jumped out of his skin when Chronica skidded down the hill to rapidly land beside him. He leaped back out of arms reach.

"Yes." Chronica beamed at him. "You're holding it."

"No, I'm not."

Chronica laughed.

"You big fool. Stop being such a scaredy-cat and let me help you. Abe and Calor tell me how you seem to be afraid of your own powers. I can help."

"I'm not. I can handle them." He said stubbornly. "And I don't have any more."

She laughed, darkly this time.

"Oh you do. You're a plant, Vash the Stampede. Black hair, not withstanding, you still have the power to turn this planet to magma when you call your death surge. And if you are as skittish as a teenager with a firework that will take off his fingers before he knows how to use it, you will destroy this planet unless you know how to direct it."

She turned away then and looked out at the open range. In the distance, far out in the desert a sand worm leaped a dune.

"Ah." She murmured. "Look."

He tried to surreptitiously edge away from her.

"For every plant there are three methods of release. Stored power, which you seem to have mastered with those clever bullets of yours. Active power, which you seem to fear, yet have used, I've seen that moon crater. And the death surge, which ends the life of a plant and is the most powerful of all the power expressions of a plant. As active power usage is practice for controlling the death surge, are you sure you don't want to learn?"

Vash froze.

"I - I am not-" He began. "I'm, I am not – " a what? Not a plant, that would be absurd. Not a weapon, well he was, whether he was a plant or not, his guns spoke against that claim.

"It must have been hard having only humans as tutors." Chronica mused. "They made us, yet they do not understand us. They have this pride that says because they made us, they own us. We allow them this fallacy, because it is all that keeps them from destroying us. We are sentient people, answerable to God, that is all. From one plant to another, Vash, you could do with a little practice. Remember what it was like the first time you handled a gun. Then how you felt the first time you shot one? And then the first time you shot and hit a person where you never meant to hit them? Remember how you felt."

Vash grinned ruefully.

"I did all I could to get better so that I wouldn't make mistakes..." He trailed off realising where this conversation was going.

"So," Chronica smiled at him. "I'll be your instructor. We'll learn weapons care first, how our power works, where the power comes from and how to regulate it."

Vash scratched the back of his neck self-consciously.

"Really?" He said in a very small voice.

"Yes."

"Um. That would be nice."

Chronica turned back to Zachery and Milly.

"You had better leave us out here. Bring us lunch and hoot when you come in, we don't want you injured by any power blast."

"Sure!" Milly called. "Good luck Mister Vash!"

Oh, so they had planned this. Vash eyed Chronica.

"I'm on your side Vash." Chronica whispered, "you protected my children when I could not."

"I lost them!" Vash said, wretchedly.

"As did their own father." Chronica said levelly. "Yet you have done all you can to help track them. I want to help you, so perhaps you can help me again. Please. Would you trust me?"

Vash watched as the Thompson siblings clambered into the truck and powered up the engine. He nodded, very reluctantly.

.

Sitting in the tub at the end of the day was luxurious. Vash scooped up a jug of hot water and poured it over his head. He was exhausted for want of a better word. Oh, he still had enough energy to run after Milly's nephews and nieces after supper, which he intended to do, but he was tired. His head hurt from thinking through all the theory Chronica had explained. His arm ached from continuously testing it out. If he were to compare it to gunmanship, he had got as far as learning to load, holster and draw a gun, and now had the order to practice that until it was second nature. He still held the energy Chronica had transferred to him and was resolutely ignoring it. He would work out a way to give it back to her. She had explained that all plants could work energy both ways, but heaven's gates seemed to be the only ones able to do it at such a magnitude.

A knock came at the door.

"Occupied!" He called as the handle jiggled.

However, the person ignored his protest, opened the door, and slipped in only to be followed by another.

"Zachery, and Livio?" Vash twisted his face as they shut the door behind him. "Can't a man have a bath in privacy?"

Livio rolled his eyes at him.

"It was the privacy we were after. I don't mean to keep things from Chronica, but some things only No Man's Landers would understand. And you're the only plant we know that is loyal to us."

Vash grabbed the towel on the chair beside the tub and pulled it around himself as he got out of the water. He sat on the chair drying his hair with a small hand towel.

"What's wrong?" He asked, realising they were not here to rag him.

Zach and Livio shared a long glance at each other.

"You're the only one free to speak oathbreaker." Zachery prompted.

Livio scowled slightly.

"It's Knives."

Vash stared at the two men. They were worried; this was not some elaborate prank.

"What about Knives?" He asked in a calm voice, trying to keep the grimness he felt out of it.

"Vash, I've met him before, before the war." Zachery said quietly. "I was just another engineer to him, a weapons manufacturer. He did not notice me, and I got on with my job. But we all knew who and what he was."

"The long and the short of it," Livio explained, "is this...

.

It was hot by the time they had driven into September. Livio wore a bandanna and as an extra precaution, a bandage over his left eye. The tattoos were very distinctive. He wore a worn duster over his faded shirt and trousers and had his own scuffed boots. They were Eye of Michael issue and would be his pass into the place. He pulled his large hat low over his eyes as he slipped out of the cab and let Zachery snap orders at him as they unloaded the back of the truck with boxes of parts and equipment. It looked like a regular warehouse on the outside with grey paint peeling on the walls. Yet once inside the outer perimeter of storage rooms, an efficient bustle of a factory was revealed within the cool interior. Hundreds of people stood checking parts and assisting the fiddly assembly machines.

"Impressive that you have enough people to keep this place operational." Livio murmured to Zachery.

"The war left millions dead, but those who live need to earn an income." Zachery replied. "This place keeps hundreds of families from deaths door."

"Subsistence."

"Survival. You know that better than most with your orphanage."

Livio turned his gaze on Zachery and the man flinched at the icy fury he found there.

"Sorry. These people are like that for me, I had to find a way to keep September, or the parts of September under my jurisdiction operating rather than in anarchy. Believe me that this place is a sanctuary for many of those who work here."

Livio gazed around seeing that most of the staff were either women or children, the youngest he could place was fourteen. It was a hard life, and compared to what he had had, a better life.

"ZT!"

Livio ducked his head behind the box he carried on his shoulder as one of the floor supervisors ran across to them.

"There's this man who's come to visit. Hubart just let him in and almost kissed the ground he walked on. I dunno who he is, but you'd better get to the office." He paused, fidgeting with worry and eyeing Livio apprehensively. He tried to be circumspect in his explanation. "I saw him sir, he's, he's like one of them from the old days, one of the bosses, y'know?"

Zachery gave a steady nod and Livio felt a thrill up his spine. The old bosses of the Eye of Michael were still around, who was here? There was the unofficial death warrant against his name.

"Thank you Langton." Zachery murmured and the man hurried away, relieved.

"Stay down here and put that box at the far end by that shelf there." Zachery instructed Livio. "The window there looks down over my office. You probably want to see who's in town so you know how to avoid them."

Livio took his time walking over to the shelf so he arrived some time after Zachery had gone. He hefted the box up onto the shelf and found the window dirty with dust and closed. He peered closer and froze. There were three men in the office, and Zachery was displaying printouts of the latest weapons catalogues. Two of the men were leaning forward with interest. The third sat back in his chair, watching with mild interest. It took all Livio had to calmly push himself away from the window and proceed down to the end of the hall and out of the building. He stood outside against the truck, trying to catch his breath. That man, no, that _plant_ was dead. An insane idea then occurred to him, well, he was a free agent now, wasn't he? He circled the building and slouched in the shade along an alley from which he could watch the main road.

Sure enough, half an hour later the man walked out followed by his two bodyguards. But he looked different now, he had a dusty grey cape wrapped around his shoulders and all three wore bandanna's across their faces and hats pulled down over their heads. They looked like three wandering vagabonds, but they moved with such purpose. No wonder no one had been able to find Millions Knives, no one would have ever thought he would hide his appearance. The man had a soaring arrogance and disregard for humanity to the point of ignoring the wanted posters. Yet this indicated some change, and if it did not, then Knives was plotting something bigger than what was going on between the Terran's and the No Man's Lander's.

.

"We think he knows you're here Vash. Why else would he come in person to check something he would otherwise delegate?" Livio asked.

Vash turned around and started roughly drying off the last of the water from his body.

"I must go." He breathed and hauled his clothes on as fast as he could. He was fully dressed in two minutes, checking the rounds in his revolver, no, his brother's revolver. He holstered the gun and found both of them staring at him.

"What are you doing?" Livio asked, baffled.

"Leaving. Everyone here will be dead if Knives wants to drive me out."

"Vash, think. If that were his intention he would have killed everyone this afternoon when he saw us." Livio explained.

Vash felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise.

"What... what has happened?" He breathed. "What is going on? What game is he now playing?"

Livio shrugged.

"We watched him walk out, flanked by two people with strange slit pupils in their eyes. Being suicidal as I am I followed him, and Zachery covered my back. We watched them walk out into the desert and they were met by a worm. It took the three of them on its back and dove across the dunes, then vanished under them. We wanted to know what Knives has to do with the hive mind and the worms. We thought you might be able to hazard a guess."

Vash frowned.

"You say you saw Knives, are you _sure_ it was him."

"Yes, I know what he looks like and how his aura is, I've served under him Vash." Livio said. "It was him, no mistake."

"What did his eyes look like?"

"He wasn't possessed by the hive mind, nor was he operating as a worm terminal, if that is what you mean. His eyes were clear."

"Yet he has the hive mind in his thrall." Zachery pointed out. "The two weird eyed men followed him as if they were his servants. They looked like the sort of intelligent thug he likes to gather around him too. Not a good sign."

"Intelligent thug?"

Zachery grinned at Livio's protest and gestured to him as if presenting him to Vash.

"Exhibit A, proving my point."

"Me, a thug? I was an assassin, there _is_ a difference!" Livio growled menacingly at Zachery, who simply stood his ground with the same clear eyed smile as Milly so often gave when she presented the truth.

Vash scratched his hand through his damp hair. This new Knives confused him. This was not a good thing; at least his actions in the past had a certain grim predictability to them. However, the fact he was not killing people directly was worrying. There were those empty towns, which now made sense.

He sighed, it was simple enough: he would have to confront his brother again. Only this time, the duel would take them both. Neither had enough energy to withstand much of a fight.

"Hey, Vash, what's going on in that head of yours?" Livio asked warily. "That's a fighting expression you have there."

Vash grimaced; his response had to be immediate. If he delayed the Thomson's would no longer have a farm, nor would September be standing, come dawn the next day.

"Show me where you saw him last."

The two men grinned at each other.

"Alrighty! This way!" Zachery grinned.

"You can't come!" Livio hissed at him. "If they know you're in with me, you're dead."

"I can take care of that." Zachery winked. "Besides it's five iles in to September, you're not walking that, are you?"

.

Vash didn't bother with a disguise, though Livio had hinted that he should use one. He did not intend to be in September long enough for them to be able to take him. He let his knees take the bumps and jolts as he stood on the back of Zachery's truck as the man sped along the road. Livio had taken a bazooka and rode shotgun.

Zachery took them on a wide loop around the outskirts of town to where the road meandered north out of the east gate of September. He followed it for half an ile then slowed and peered out the window as he drove, then brought the truck to a rumbling halt.

"Here."

They got out and inspected the ground, the tracks of three men wandered out into the desert.

"See? There is nothing but sand and dust out there." Zachery said.

"And the occasional worm." Livio murmured. In the distance another worm crested a dune.

Zachery returned to the truck.

"Hey?" Livio asked tersely.

"Hey what?" Vash asked blankly.

Livio scowled at him.

"You know very well what, he's out there! What are you going to do about him?"

"You saw him, what are you going to do about him?" Vash responded disgruntled.

"I _told_ you! That's my part done." Livio declared, then half turned with a growl of irritation. "Hey! That's my gun, get your hands off it!"

Vash turned to find Zachery on the roof of the cab aiming the bazooka out at the desert sands.

"H-hey! No. No! Stop!" He yelled and waved his hands as the shell thundered out of the rocket launcher. Vash spun, drawing his gun and firing, the mortar spun away and exploded in the nearest sand dune, sending up a cloud of sand.

"Wha-what are you doing?" He spluttered up at Zachey who was staring at him startled.

"Making sure no worms come back?" Zachery exclaimed.

"I saw one of the Terran's try that once." Livio said conversationally. "Actually hit a worm. The Terran died. Along with the seven people with him. Worms don't take kindly to our intrusion, and are vindictive in retaliation."

Zachery lowered the bazooka.

"So how do we drive them out?"

"You don't. Ignore them and they'll move on soon enough." Vash explained.

"But..."

"You're just lucky that rocket never hit anything but sand. Let's go."

"I thought you wanted to see the worms." Zachery said disgruntled.

"Not if you're going to be taking pot shots at them." Livio groused. "Did I tell you how those Terrans died? Have you ever seen the mouth on a worm? Not a pretty sight."

"Do they eat people?" Zachery asked handing down the bazooka and then swinging into the cab.

"No, they eat tomas's but people make a good snack when they can't get that."

Vash rolled his eyes at Livio he began to elaborate on the gristly methods worms used to kill people. As far as he knew, they ate sand for minerals, drank at underground aquifers and their protein diet consisted mostly of insects. Livio however, seemed to be getting into his story as he clambered into the cab and Zachery looked suitably enthralled at the horror. He waited until Livio had finished a particularly gory description and stuck his head in at Zachery's window.

"What are we going to do about the worm that has been travelling alongside us for the last minute?"

Zachery and Livio stared out at the dunes. A worm was keeping pace with them; it was unnatural enough to be eerie.

"Get into the city!" Livio exclaimed, but Zachery had already floored the accelerator and it was all Vash could do to hang on.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow!" He clung to the roll bar as the truck bounced across the rocky road. "The city isn't going to help if it wants to catch us!" Vash shouted. "They can burrow under rock!"

"What?" Livio called. "Vash? What are you on about?"

"Just stop the truck and let's see what it wants!"

"No way!" Zachery exclaimed and spun his steering wheel and slammed the breaks so he drifted through ninety degrees and thundered down the main road through September. People screamed and darted off the streets, then cries of real terror followed them. Zachery turned up the road past the factory and drifted around the corner of the building into a narrow road. As Vash looked back he saw a worm following them through the city. The pop of gunfire sounded but the worm came on, closer and closer.

"Go straight through the city!" Vash called. "It'll follow us out."

But the worm came to a halt by the factory. Zachery let out a sulphurous explosion of swearing and spun the truck through one eighty and headed straight back down the road.

"What the hell are you doing?" Livio demanded.

"It's after my factory, not us! Why did it stop there?" Zachery growled and brought the truck to a screeching halt. He clambered onto the cab roof.

"Hey! You! Worm!"

"Er, Zach, I don't think they can understand you." Livio murmured in the careful tone of voice reserved for the insane.

It was then that the rider atop the worm stood up. Vash gaped at him as he recognised the man; it had been the man he had lugged back into the desert, the one he had rescued from the jail cell just over a year ago.

"Vash the Stampede."


	33. Chapter 33

_**Chapter 33**_

September cont

"Where are they?"

Milly smiled questioningly at Chronica from where she stood at the kitchen table kneading bread.

"Livio, Vash and ZT." Chronica ticked their names off on her fingers irritably. "He's gone and done it again! Leaving without saying anything."

"Ah." Milly's mother said softly. "In your letters you mentioned Vash would do that."

"Oh yes, he would! It would make Miss Meryl awfully irritated. She would grumble so loudly to her paperwork that it was hard to think of the actual reports."

Chronica glowered at the barns and flat desert planes she could see out the back door.

"Yow, Chronica, what's eating you?" Abe asked as he sauntered into the kitchen. He bypassed Milly and inspected the table, then nicked a scoop of bread dough when he thought no one was looking. Milly caught his hand when he tried a second time.

"Milly, can we borrow a car?" Chronica asked.

"Sure. Mum, do we have the old jeep?"

"Yes, it's in the south barn. When do you think you'll be back?"

"Supper time." Milly smiled.

"So sure?" Abe said astonished.

Chronica laughed.

"I don't know ZT, but if Vash is anything like Livio, his stomach will call him home."

* * *

"Vash the Stampede." The yellow eyed man with slits for pupils growled his name.

Vash knew he had once helped him, perhaps he would listen.

"Haa, er, look, there has been a mistake." Vash raised his hands in protest.

"A mistake?" The man asked in a quiet voice. "Am I mistaken that these men you ride with are your allies and accomplices?"

"Ah, yes they are..." Vash glanced back at Livio and Zachery who were staring at him.

"You know this guy?" Livio scrunched up his face incredulously.

"We met once in less salubrious circumstances. He assisted me." The man said, then crouched down on the head of the worm.

"Who are you?" Livio asked.

"He's the Leader of the Sandworms." Vash explained.

"No. That title rightly belongs to our Chieftain. I am merely a servant, the First Leader. In limited human understanding, I am the voice of this worm. What is the word you favour? _Terminal_. I am the terminal through which one may relate."

"You have a Chieftain now?" Vash pondered, his stomach slowly turning to lead. No. This could not be happening. It made terrible sense, now that he looked and understood the signs that had been there all along.

"Yes, as unnatural as that is, yet we adapt in order to survive. I have a message, and for once it does not pain me to deliver it. Consider it the repayment of the debt I have to you."

"Well?" Livio interrupted. "Are you going to stand there yakking all afternoon, or are you trying to bore us with flowery speech?"

"As impetuous as you humans are, be thankful of my benevolence. Leave this city. Return to the gardens you grow at the edge of the city. Remain there this day and this night. What you do beyond that time is up to you, but we will not distinguish one human from another in this time. Now go."

"You're going to attack the city?" Vash exclaimed in horror.

"This is not your war." The First Leader replied and turned to go.

"Hey!" Vash yelled and took a running leap at the worm. He scrambled up the rough scales and yelled as a heavy boot landed on his hand.

"Your brother said to add these words if you would not listen." The First Leader growled down at him in cold fury. "He knows you well, Vash the Stampede, he predicted this behaviour in you. These are his words. _There is a reason, and you don't know the whole story_."

Vash gaped up at the man. Knives. It _was_ Knives that Livio had seen. Only Knives would be able to throw his words, and more terribly those words, back in his face.

"Take me to him!" Vash breathed. He had to see how Knives still lived. What had happened? How had _this_ strange thing happened? What was Knives up to now?

"You have till the sun reaches the highest point at noon to leave the city. I have my orders, you have your warning. Go."

Vash tried to drag himself up, but the First Leader simply leaped backwards to land in a crouch on the worms head and then the worm was moving. Vash clung on furiously. He would see Knives. He had to see Knives. He would stop whatever the worms had planned.

The worm sped back through the city streets, and Vash tried to get a better grip. The scales were rough and cut into his fingers where his gloves left them exposed. They passed the outer gates and all at once the worm reared. Vash found himself arcing through the air. Someone grabbed the back of his coat.

"Y'know. Of the two of you, I am glad it was him. You're persistent at all the wrong times."

Vash twisted around but he was already falling. He scrabbled at the side of the worm, only to land with a bone-jarring thud on the sand. He dazedly struggled upright as the worm chased up the side of the sand dune. He staggered a few paces then ran after it. He arrived at the top of the dune half a minute later, panting and out of breath and the worm was gone.

He clenched and unclenched his fist, his fingers bloody.

"What? What don't I know?" He demanded.

The desert heat swallowed up his words and the silence fell like a sword, cutting off any hope of reply.

He stood searching the dune for tracks, but aside from a slight pouring of sand down the far side of the dune there was nothing to indicate that a worm had come this way.

Knives would never have warned him. That had been the First Leaders doing, in repayment of debt. He wondered what it had cost the man to ask that boon of Knives. No, it was the worm, not a man, yet the man spoke for him... how confusing. He felt his breathing slow as he regained his composure. The First Leader had done more than he had anticipated. He had confirmed that Knives was alive, and given his status as one who controlled the worms. Vash put his hand over his mouth and stared out at the great expanse of desert. Knives controlled the hive mind, but to what extent was unknown, and to what purpose was unknown. The First Leader had spoken of himself as a collective, but perhaps that was not the hive mind, but a council of leaders? Aah. This was so confusing and he had too little to work with. No. He had enough. The city of September was in danger, and there were people to help.

"Oi! Vash! What the hell happened there?" Livio, followed by Zachery, arrived at the top of the dune.

"We have to evacuate the city." Vash said turning to them. "The worms will attack at noon."

"Yeah, we heard that bit." Livio said.

"Help me clear the city."

"What? Are you insane? Have you seen the mob at the gate?" Zachery demanded. "You and your signature coat are a little recognisable, and the sum of $$ 200 billion makes your face very memorable for some reason."

Vash looked beyond Zachery to see some people running and others getting into their cars or leaping onto their tomases to take up the chase.

"Good, they'll be out of the city." He grinned. "Help me sneak back in 'round the west gate and I'll get the whole city after me!"

"Vash." Livio said as Zachery stared at him as if he were insane. "How are you still alive?"

"Hey!" Vash complained. "That worm wasn't going to kill me."

"I mean, how are you still alive if this is how you think? A hundred and fifty odd years and you run straight into danger?"

"W-what? You did it for me." Vash pointed out, slightly hurt, and then grinned. "Now we're doing it for these people."

"You did?" Zachery said to Livio who had his mouth hanging open as Vash leaped down the dune to where the truck was parked.

"How does he do it?" Livio asked incredulously. "Every time. Every damn time. He just trusts that I'll be there to back him, and somehow I find myself there where he needs me, backing him."

"Backing him or no," Zachery said. "Another minute and my truck will be in rocket range of those bounty hunters, 'c'mon! Time to go dune surfing!"

.

Vash crouched beside Livio, keeping his head down. He had just eluded the last of the bounty hunters and didn't want to get Livio caught up in it if he could help it. He peered over the parapet of the building, watching the exodus of people towards the farming villages.

"The bounty hunters are chasing around the desert for me and those are Zachery's people." Vash counted them off, but there was a distinct lack of bustle beyond the street they now overlooked. "Why haven't they moved yet? What is Zachery doing?" Vash asked.

"This is the edge of Zachery's territory." Livio explained.

Vash peered down to see Zachery himself was standing in the sun outside the building opposite and arguing. His opponent was a man built like an ox, and in place of his right arm he had an augmented prosthetic, the automatic gun attachments menacingly visible. His left eye and half his head was also covered in steel, though how much was helmet or bionic attachment Vash could not tell. He had an air of menace as he casually clenched his prosthetic fist, blatantly angling the gun at Zachery.

"Vash the Stampede? Here?" He gave a loud guffaw of laughter. "Zachery Thompson, you do amuse me. Go back to your petty delusions and leave the heavyweights to play, hmm?"

"What's going on?" Vash asked.

"That's Cornelius Saunders." Livio murmured, his attention intent on the gunmen covering Saunders. "Self proclaimed boss of this area. He'd shoot Zachery dead in two heartbeats if he wasn't worried about the retaliation from the Eye of Michael. Zachery's trying to get him to move his people out."

"And you're telling me and you're not after the bounty?" Saunders drawled. "What'cha not tellin' me Zachery Thompson?"

"It's nearly noon!" Vash exclaimed. "How many people do we have to move?"

"Two thirds of September." Livio said grimly.

"I told you everything!" Zachery exclaimed. "The worms are going to attack the city."

"And we move out, and then what? We'd end up in the desert, where, oh goodness, there are worms. Zachery Thompson you have been in the sun too long. Not that this isn't vastly entertaining, hearing you talk nonsense, but I prefer other amusements."

He turned to go back.

"Vash no!" Livio darted out to grab him but Vash leaped over the parapet and down onto the balcony below.

Saunders turned around again.

"Who're you?" He asked as Vash dropped down from the balcony to land in the street beside Zachery.

"Vash the Stampede."

Saunders looked him up and down then burst out laughing.

"Zachery, Zachery you are most entertaining! You even have your friends dress up and parade around like a wanted outlaw! He's even got a good mimic of the red coat, though he got a few details wrong. And to think I was going to shoot you. I will keep you around as my jester. This is too good."

"But I am Vash the Stampede." Vash protested.

"He is." Zachery said.

"And the worm's are coming." Vash exclaimed.

"They are."

"They will kill everyone left in this city!"

"Dead."

"You need to get everyone out."

"Now!"

Saunders looked from one to the other with a smile.

"I don't know what happened but I'm loving the comedy duo." Saunders laughed, then turned a speculative eye on Vash. "If you are really Vash the Stampede, then I have $$ 200 billion for the taking. If you are him, then I will gladly warn the people to evacuate, hell, my own men will assist them in the evacuation."

"I am him." Vash stepped forward.

"Vash, what are you doing?" Zachery grabbed his arm.

Saunders raised a thick eyebrow and lowered his head to stare Vash directly in the eyes.

"Only, you see, Vash the Stampede is a _plant_. You never thought of that, now did you? We all saw what that insane plant Millions Knives did, gathered all the plants to him. Zapped all those Terran ships. Don't you think that Vash the Stampede would have a little of that power? Where's your power, Mister Vash the Stampede?"

Vash stared at him. He had no power; that was the truth. No matter what Chronica had shown him, he honestly had none he could use. He did not know enough to control his death surge and he could not risk the city of September. He stared at the bull shouldered man and smiled.

"C'mon we've got two thirds of the city to evacuate, let's get going." Vash turned and hurried past Zachery, then staggered to a halt as the ends of the road filled with armed men.

"Where exactly are you going? Saunders called after them, still vastly amused.

"Nowhere." Vash said in a hoarse voice as he looked up at the sky.

It was noon.

He turned to Saunders who was gloating at him.

"Even if you aren't Vash the Stampede, you're still target practice."

"Y-you fool!" Vash breathed. "Everyone is going to die!"

Saunders spread his hands with a lingering smile, as if indicating that the only people dying would be him and Zachery.

Saunders raised his arm but that was as far as he got motioning for the signal to fire. Their only warning was a slight earth tremor before the street beyond Vash erupted. The great maw of a worm appeared, followed by its scaled body. There were shouts and yells as the gunmen opened fire then fled as the worm arced into the air and with a calculated twitch fell on them. It gave out the most eerie hissing noise as it turned, still not yet free of the ground, knocking down buildings as it did so.

"Vash the Stampede!"

Vash gaped up at the First Leader who crouched on the head of the worm.

"You're even stupider than he says you are!"

"P-please! Please stop!" Vash begged. "Give me time to get these people out!"

"Time?" The First Leader growled. "Time is up. It is noon. Draw your guns and fight like men, and die like men. This is retribution."

The First Leader raised his shotgun and fired it at Saunders.

"No!"

Vash threw up his arm and was flung back against the man as the shots were fired, the shot burying itself painfully in mechanisms of his prosthetic. He tried to breathe through the pain as the First Leader raised his weapon.

"You would defend a man so evil he defiles the ground he walks on?"

"Wha? No, just don't kill him! Killing solves nothing!"

Vash felt a pistol to his head.

"So you _are_ Vash the Stampede?" Saunders breathed incredulously.

A shot went off and Vash staggered sideways and Saunders dropped the gun.

"Run Vash!" Livio yelled.

The rest of Saunder's thugs scattered. Screams and sounds of mayhem were coming from the rest of the city. Saunders scrabbled for his gun but Livio shot it out of his reach and Saunders raised his prosthetic arm and let off a barrage of machinegun fire at Livio's sniping point.

Vash ran. He swung himself up onto the balcony again and in one fluid movement launched himself at the sand worm. This time he managed to scrabble up to where the First Leader was crouched reloading his shotgun. The First Leader snapped the gun closed and drew a pistol as Vash crouched beside him.

"You and I we have no more words."

"Oh yes we do!" Vash pushed the pistol away. "What happened? What retribution? What has Saunders done?"

"Ah, yes. You would have chased people out before you went investigating. You plants were patient, but there was a limit eh? It's like that for everyone. Now get out or I shall have to injure you."

"No! Tell me!" Vash demanded, then almost fell when the worm reared and shot off down the street. He grabbed onto the rough scales and kicked and struggled to get a better grip.

"You know, I can feel that." The First Leader remarked dryly and took a corner with particular speed, scraping the side of the worm against the buildings. Vash yelled and leaped to slam through a window. He rolled through the empty living room, and sprinted for the window on the far side. But the worm had gone, faster than he could run.

"What!" He yelled after them. "What have they done?"

He hurried up to the roof and peered down the road trying to see what was going on. An explosion several streets over sent a plume of debris and dust up into the skies. It was far too near the plants for him to ignore it.

.

"Oi! Vash!"

He looked down to find Zachery helping Livio along the road. Livio was limping and cussing up a storm. By the time Vash reached them in the street Livio was gingerly stretching out his foot with a miffed glare at Zachery.

"All healed. Told you."

Zachery stared at him astonished.

"What is the Eye of Michael?"

Livio raised his eyebrow.

"You work for them."

"I know I do. I'm just wondering what I work for?" Zachery said faintly. "I'm a weapons engineer; I build guns to their specifications. I thought they were a cult who prioritised the protection of plants and kept the worst of the underworld thugs in check. But, but... what are you?"

"I told you. I was an assassin."

Vash peered at Zachery who stepped back into the road in horror.

"What's wrong? We need to go after the First Leader!" Vash called.

Livio limped after him but Zachery stayed put.

"Zachery?" Vash called.

"You protected him..." Zachery said, his eyes slowly widening.

"What? No, that's just Vash being an idiot. He always does that. Doesn't like killing!" Livio explained. "What's eating you ZT? Something is off."

"Wahoo! There they are! Hello!"

The three of them turned as a jeep raced up the street with Milly at the wheel, Abe and Calor in the back, and Chronica riding shotgun. They came to a dusty halt beside them.

"Chronica!" Livio protested, limping over to her. "You can't fire that thing in a city! We've had this argument before!"

"Can't do more damage than the worms. C'mon, let's do some worm hunting!" She grinned.

"What? No!" Vash exclaimed. "The First Leader said something about retribution! Zachery, you've gotta tell me if you know anything! Why would the worms take retribution? And why like this? They usually send in the hive mind and empty the city of people."

Zachery stood staring at Livio.

"Big brother?" Milly called. "Hop on! We're missing the action!"

Zachery grabbed the wind shield and stood on the running board beside her. Livio did the same beside Chronica. Vash slipped in beside Calor as she shifted up in the back seat.

Milly took off towards the now drifting plume of smoke.

"Milly, he's one of Saunders mutants." Zachery protested.

"Livio?" Milly laughed. "Oh no. He's Eye of Michael, well he was. They modify their top assassins. Miss Meryl did some digging when the New Bernadelli put us onto it, and she says it's their research that the Terran's stole and bastardised."

Zachery turned to give Milly a bemused stare of incomprehension.

"What?"

"Can you explain it Livio?" Milly asked as she hit the brakes. "Hold on!" She yelled as she skidded around the corner and roared up a main avenue through the city. Shell shocked people fled through the streets out of the city.

"They take us at twelve years or younger, just before puberty hits. They re-engineer us, enhance us and indoctrinate us and send us out. The only reason you know this and I leave you still alive is because I am no longer one of them." Livio scowled. "So what is this Saunders doing that has you thinking I would be part of whatever mutant program?"

Zachery glared ahead, where a worm slithered across the street ahead. Chronica raised her bazooka and Vash dived for the rear end of the rocket launcher.

"No! No! No!"

"Then tell us who we are fighting!" Chronica demanded furiously. "I thought we were fighting the worms!"

"I don't know!" Vash exclaimed. "I don't know. But we must protect the plants. The worms and humans can defend themselves, the plants can't."

"Ever we return to the defence of our brethren." Abe muttered and grabbed Vash's coat and hauled him back down into the seat. "Believe it or not, you're not the only plant here, and you're not the only one worrying about the power plants. So. Why can't we shoot the worms if they are what's causing the danger?"

"They did something to the worms." Vash said. "The First Leader said it was retribution."

"Is he always like this?" Zachery asked in an incredulous voice.

"Oh yes!" Milly said with bright confidence. "He's good at it too. He always finds a way to keep everyone alive!"

Vash felt a wave of nausea at her bright optimism.

"No. I don't." He said thickly. "But, but there is always a way. I was just not quick enough to think of one."

"Or perhaps you don't know enough." Chronica pointed out. "Zachery, what do you know?"

Zachery was silent as Milly reached the end of the wide avenue and came to a halt outside the power plant station.

"It doesn't make any sense!" He growled as they clambered out of the car.

"Filter it through many minds. Perhaps one of us will be able to work it out." Abe suggested.

Another explosion nearby lifted them off the ground with its shock wave. Half stunned they picked themselves up as debris and dust fell.

"Filter it later!" Chronica yelled, and then turned to Vash. "I won't hunt worms, but I swear if they come after the plant's they're dead!"

Vash gave her a thankful smile then took off in the direction of the explosion.

.

He stopped several roads away and found the smoking ruins of a tower block that had imploded in on itself.

"That was set up." Livio observed, as he came to stand beside him. "All imploded neatly like that in on itself? That's explosives set within the building. Vash, this is not a random attack. This is a planned assault."

"But why?" Vash demanded.

"What building was that?" Abe asked as Zachery reached them, panting hard.

"I dunno. This is the business district, mostly financial and property companies."

"Why are we looking at a building Mister Vash?" Milly asked. "The worms are heading that way."

"Why aren't you with Chronica?" Zachery demanded.

"Because it is my job to follow Mister Vash and the plants." Milly stuck out her tongue at her brother.

"Chronica is a plant."

"So are Mister Abe, Miss Calor and Mister Vash!"

Vash ignored the sibling argument and hurried off towards the nearest tall building.

"Hey! Mister Vash, the worms went that way!"

Vash hardly heard her as he sprinted up the fire escape to the top of the building. He stood peering out over September trying to work out a method to the madness as if that would help him anticipate where the worms would appear next.

He became aware of the conversation behind him as Zachery and Abe came up behind him.

"Saunders is a thug. He traffics people, organs, guns, prosthetics, the worst sort of thug. He's been meeting too many Terran's of late. No offence, but your people are never good news when you mix with the underworld. And now the Worm's are involved? What is going on?"

"You're asking me? I just got here!" Abe protested.

Vash tried to tune them out.

Think. They seemed to be attacking certain businesses rather than civilian housing and tower blocks. The last time he had been in September had been over fifteen years ago. A great deal had changed, but people were creatures of habit. They perhaps would keep similar businesses in the same areas. The first place hit had been a munitions factory, by the pall of black smoke and successive explosions still occurring; it was still a munitions factory. There were three other smoking factories, two had been making prosthetics, and the third packaged and shipped ice. The next building was not a factory but an exclusive hospital. Think.

He turned as another building went up in a plume of smoke, and collapsed down. Imploded again, they had been waiting for this moment. What had that been? A tomas meat export factory. It was on the main road through September. Think. Yes. There was a pattern. Or at least a logical methodology. They were advancing towards the north. If he could get ahead of them perhaps, he could try to negotiate a ceasefire.

Vash turned and sprinted down the fire escape.

"Mister Vash!" Milly called. "Wait!"

"Where'd he go?" Zachery asked infuriated as they searched through side roads. "Why'd he just run off without us?"

"He does that when he thinks we can't handle things." Milly said with a smile and hefted her stun gun onto her shoulder. "But we know him better than that. He always needs help. Abe, where is he?"

"Why you're asking him?" Zachery asked, bewildered.

"Plants can sense other plants." Milly smiled.

"That way." Calor pointed north as Abe crouched down.

She laughed at his bemused expression.

"You don't have to touch the ground to know where he is, the wall does just fine."

A sudden closer explosion of gunfire made them jump.

"We'd better hurry." Milly exclaimed. "I think the bounty hunters have found him!"

"So are they our enemies now?" Calor asked, jogging after them.

"No, they're just a nuisance. We've got to get to Vash to find out what made him take off like that."

"Does anyone else think he's insane?" Calor grumbled.

"In a good way!" Milly laughed. "At least he's letting us follow him. You should see how he gets when people go after him. He goes all scary and tells people to go away and leave him."

.

Vash only became aware that his friends had not kept up when silence surrounded him. He took the twists and turns of the city alleys at speed. He still remembered them; they had not changed much since his previous visits. People only put on new facades in the larger streets, and neglected the narrow alleys. He sprinted across the main road, but not fast enough.

"There! That was him!"

He glanced back to see a crowd of looters suddenly turn bounty hunters.

"Vash the Stampede!"

"Wha? What? No! Not now!" He ducked down the nearest alley and ran. "W-why is everyone a-always after me?"

He tried to head in the general direction of the attack line and dodge bounty hunters at the same time. At least he had lost his friends; they did not need to be involved in this.

He dodged behind a garbage skip and caught his breath as several hunters sprinted past him. Ow! Ow, ow! He had just landed on a pile of discarded rough grade sandpaper. He rubbed at his grazed fingers. Just his rotten luck. And it stank here. Some filthy people had dumped some, some... He stared at the pile of what he had first thought was sandpaper or perhaps warped shelving. Only it smelled so bad it could not be that. He ran his fingers along it testing the surface. He had felt it before. He felt his stomach clench up. No wonder the worms were attacking. He was crouched on top of a pile of rough dried worm scales. Someone had dissected a worm.

He looked around and saw the cargo hoist several yarz up. He leaped up onto the edge of the garbage skip and crouched then leaped, catching the hoist cables to pull himself up.

"There he is!"

Oh no! He had forgotten the bounty hunters.

"Ah ha ha ha!" He waved at them as he swung frantically up into the cargo door and used his momentum to kick the doors open. He twisted to dodge bullets as he took the second swing to launch himself inside. He peered down onto the cargo floor. He ran as he heard the clicks of guns cocking. Below him among the maze of crates and lifts the employees and security officers of the factory dealt with him like any intruder. Shoot to kill. He dodged and dove through the door at the end of the gantry way.


	34. Chapter 34

_**Chapter 34**_

He sprinted through the first office he came to and scrambled out through the window out onto the narrow balcony surrounding just that window. He managed to leap down a floor to another such narrow balcony before the bounty hunters noticed him. A misaimed shot took out the window beside him. He glanced up as cusses and shouts above him announced the arrival of the factories security. He clambered through the window as the factory security opened fire on the bounty hunters.

Back in the building again, he tried to make his way with more stealth. He hurried down the first flight of stairs he came to and when he came to the ground floor heard the thud of feet on the stair behind him. He took the next flight down to the basement. It was dark here, lit only by lamp light which flickered. Vash eyed the flickering lights worriedly. Disruption in the power could simply be the worms tearing up the infrastructure, or they had gone after the plants. He realised then he had no time to waste, he could not let Chronica fire that awful gun of hers. He tried all the doors along the passage and finally came to a larger cargo door that opened into another cargo area with ramps up to the surface. The place looked as if people had abandoned it moments before.

He knew what he would find even before he tried lifting lids and inspecting the plastic containers in the fridges along the side of the room. Worm parts, bits and pieces of dissected worm.

"Eeew, gross."

He jumped, spinning around with his revolver raised as he found Milly, Abe and Calor all peering into the first crate he had found. It had worm eyes in it.

"This is just the dispatch unit." Zachery said grimly as he walked over to Vash. "Livio's creating a diversion for us, let me show you what I think you need to see."

"How can they do this? Why?" Vash asked.

"It gets worse." Zachery jerked his head in the direction of the cargo doors. "C'mon."

They climbed into a white panel van with the words 'Crays Dispatch' on the side and Zachery drove out of the loading bay and hit the klaxon twice. There was a thud on the roof. Then a double thud as a fist pounded on it.

"Good timing, now drive!" Livio shouted.

The van thundered down the street as Livio returned fire.

Zachery took the side streets and they left the industrial sector of the city and drove out to the north, ahead of the worm attack. He pulled up outside an office block with a security guard booth. The guard was currently standing on top of the booth staring at the mayhem in the distance.

"What's happened?" He demanded of Zachery as he crouched down.

"Sandworms gone crazy. They hit Crays and we just escaped Dorvin's processing plant. I'd say if you follow the pattern, you're next. I'm here to warn Saunders."

The guard stared down at him, they could all see him realising that it would be so much easier to hand them over to the higher authority. He dropped down from the roof of the booth and opened the gates for them.

"Isn't this guy your enemy?" Livio asked as he leaped down from the top of the van.

Zachery did not say anything but set his shoulders and walked across to the set of double doors at the back of the building.

"Crays!" He called at the intercom. The doors clicked open and Zachery grinned bleakly. "Too trusting." He said in an undertone. "This way."

.

Zachery took them up to the second level and it was here they encountered people in lab coats. They got stared at, and stared at the people in return. They could catch glimpses of the labs off the corridors via the windows in the doors. Some were not labs, but wards with the ends of beds showing from behind drawn curtains.

"It's kind of a hospital." Calor mused. "Or part hospital part research lab. Zachery what is so bad about this place?"

Zachery jerked his thumb up and they took the stairs to the next level. He paused and put out an arm to block Vash and Calor who were behind him.

"You're really not going to like this. Just don't do anything stupid."

They walked along the passage again, peering in at rooms. Vash was reminded of the old ship the twins had found. This whole level had containment capsules, and within them slept weirdly morphed bodies.

"They've re-engineered them." Livio growled in disgust. "I've seen this stuff before. But the Eye of Michael never did it to the scale of the grotesque or with so much crass augmentation. I can say this for their twisted practices, they had an elegance."

"They stole the re-engineering technology from the Eye of Michael. But the Terran's are clever, and twisted in a way no No Man's Lander is."

Vash felt Zachery grip his arm and pull him over to the side, but he didn't say anything.

The next room spoke eloquently all for itself.

At first Vash did not know what he was seeing. It was a large room, three stories in height. The room glowed with a pale light, and the light itself seemed to come from the grotesquely warped mutant in the middle of the floor. It was connected to the wall by thick cables, at first they seemed like cords to bind it, then as it moved, they realised it was a life support. The free moving creature within was a plant angel.

Vash found Calor and Abe with their faces against the window as his was, but try as he might, he could not reach out to her mind.

"Keep it calm." Zachery reminded them. "She's not the worst."

"Zachery." Abe said levelly. "I am well aware of what my people are capable of, but no Terran would stoop so low as to torture a plant like that. They've cut her off from the collective consciousness. We have to break her out."

"She is not the worst." Zachery said grimly.

Abe loped over and slung his arm around Zachery's shoulders.

"How do you know about all this stuff?"

"I was just wondering that myself."

They turned to see Saunders loitering at the end of the passage with his security around him.

"Three independent plants, they tell me, and one augmented man. Zachery Thompson, you run with very dangerous people."

"Are you responsible for her?" Abe asked pointing at the plant in the room.

"She's the power plant for this hospital, she is responsible for us."

"Do you know why plants are enclosed in orbs?" Calor asked quietly. "So that humans can't interfere with them and so that they can't interfere with humans. Take away the orb and she'd flood your mind with her memories and feelings. Is that why you trapped her in that room, bound and condemned to solitary confinement?"

Vash hung back by the door as Calor and Abe argued with Saunders.

"You speak as if that is a prison term." Saunders scoffed. "She's a plant. They don't need company."

(Have you _any_ idea what you have done?) Everyone winced as Abe roared his fury and desperation across their minds.

Saunders henchmen suddenly bristled guns, but Saunders raised a hand. Milly, Zachery, Livio and Calor all responded by raising their weapons.

"I want them alive." Saunders said calmly. "And that one in red is Vash the Stampede. He's the one we really need."

(You think you have the power to fight us?) Abe sneered, seething with fury.

(Do you think you have the power to resist?) A large woman beside Saunders stepped up. (Your plant powers are nothing compared to what I have gained.)

Abe's body suddenly arched back. He shuddered, furiously fighting it.

There was a sudden thud and the woman went over backwards and crashed into the wall behind as Milly let off a stun gun claw. Abe collapsed to his knees and raised his gun at the same time. Vash twisted his lock picks carefully and was rewarded with a solid click. He leaned on the door and it swung open heavily. Outside a gunshot went off and Vash could hear the song of the plant. He raised an eyebrow as she recognised him and changed her song instantly. Memories of their previous meetings flashed across his mind.

(Not now, sister.) He tried to interrupt the confusing blur across his mind. He was surprised when he recognised her. She had been at Felnarl before the war and the fused entity, and then had been relocated here. She ponderously asked about Knives. Vash tried to explain as best he could about worms. He laughed when the idea the plant came up with the idea of a fused entity, only including the hive mind rather than other plants. He then felt as though he had been punched in the stomach; she probably was not far off the mark. She then asked in clear images why she could not hear other plants; it gave him the impression that there had been other plants. A quick glance around the room showed at least three more power couplings.

"Vash!" He jumped as Milly stumbled into the room, and then gave the plant a blank look as it overrode her mind. He turned as the battle outside demanded his attention. He drew his revolver and didn't dodge as one of Saunder's henchmen fired. He could not move, or they would hit the plant behind him. He saw a ripple of white flames form and hastily shut down his own defences. He had been shot before, it hurt like hell, but he had lived. He could dodge enough to catch the bullet where it wouldn't do too much damage. He swung the muzzle of the black gun up, knocking the bullet off course to embed itself in the wall, he hadn't counted on the rapid fire though. He staggered as the next two shots took him in the shoulder. Furious with his misjudgement he shot the gun out of the man's hand as Saunders roared in fury. The man flung up his augmented arm into Gattling mode. In the background, over the sound of machinegun fire, Saunders was yelling.

"Don't hit the plant! She cost me ten billion double dollars! Get them out of there!"

Through waves of agony, Vash returned fire, toppling his opponent and aimed his gun directly at Saunders.

"Where are the others?" He demanded. "The three others that came with her, where are they?"

"Go up one level, ugh!" Zachery called and then collapsed on the floor as his moment's distraction cost him the fight. Abe kicked the man who had knifed Zachery off him and snatched up his gun and stood over him, facing the two of the men at a jittery standoff.

Vash grabbed Milly to pull her out of the plant song and she raised her stun gun and in one fluid movement a claw thumped into Saunders. He tried to shoot it out of her hand and caught her arm, causing her to drop the gun. Vash caught it and she stubbornly grabbed it with her good arm and slung the strap across her shoulder to hold it.

"I've got it Mister Vash." She said through gritted teeth.

(Do you know what plants can do?) Abe asked idly as he hefted the two guns. The next instant he blurred and the remaining two men went down. (We can move faster than you can see.) He walked over to Calor who was slouched down beside Zachery, holding her side which was bleeding.

"He's got concussion, the knife only grazed his head, he's very lucky."

Abe lifted Zachery and slung him over his shoulder in a fireman's lift as Milly walked over and helped Calor up.

"We're gonna have company soon!" He called to Vash who was staring up at the high windows in the room. He raised his gun and shot each one out, breaking the enclosure. At least that way, she would be able to hear other plants. She did not thank him but sent her mind out searching for the other three. Vash ran after Abe, Calor and Milly as ran up the stairs.

"What did Zachery mean that we haven't seen the worst?" He asked.

"That one woman Milly took out with her claw." Calor murmured. "I don't know how it is possible, but she was human, but at the same time a plant. His mind attack on Abe is only something I have seen between independents."

"Was she an independent?" Milly asked.

"No." Calor explained. "She lacked the speed and, I don't know how to explain it, but humans and plants feel different. Up here." She tapped her head.

"An engineered human plant? This is very bad." Milly murmured. "I wonder what big brother knew, he knows too much and keeps it all quiet!" She glared at him as his unconscious form bounced on Abe's back.

.

Vash slipped ahead and peered out into the passage, he leaped out as he saw a man he had met twice already that day.

"First Leader!"

"Vash the Stampede!" The First Leader raised his shotgun and glared at him. "It would be you here, kicking up the hornets in this nest right when I wanted to smoke them out. Have you no subtlety?"

Abe and Calor with Zachery and Milly appeared at the head of the stairs and gaped at the man.

"No. He has no subtlety when it comes to people in danger." Livio said, walking out of a room beyond the Fist Leader. "Vash, this is what Zachery wanted us to see. And First Leader, if you want your worms prepared for what is going to go after you, come look."

The First Leader walked backwards with his gun trained on Vash and peered into the room. He lowered his gun and then walked inside.

Livio caught Vash's shoulder.

"I never thought Zachery meant it this bad." He murmured grimly.

It was a room like the one the plant had been in, only, only... Vash stared in sickened horror at what he could see. There were the three plants, hooked up to their life supports and hanging in the cradles that supported their naked bodies. Only they were unconscious. And. He turned away and staggered over to the bin by the door to throw up.

"I'm glad Chronica is not with us." Calor breathed faintly and Milly tried to support her as she swayed.

"I wish she was." Abe growled. "Who the hell did this? I have a rusty old hunting knife I want to introduce to their innards!"

Zachery groaned and Abe lowered him to the floor. Vash stood up and grimly turned to face the room again. It had been as if someone was trying to make a human form out of the strange multi limbed forms that were the plant's natural selves. There were raw scars indicating removed limbs and wings.

The First Leader approached the nearest plant and put his hand into the remaining long hand. The plant did not respond.

"Unconscious. Sedated heavily. In pain. Drawing all they can through the gate to survive." He withdrew his hand and turned to them. He pointed to Vash and Calor. "This much pain, we sedate." He swept his hand out taking in all three plants. "That much pain, we let die. Then in mourning we hunt those who did it. We let die five worms in the last month. We have found who did it, and they pay in their blood for the pain we must carry. They are your kindred; you may have the honours of easing the last of their lives. I must see to the blood debt." He turned and walked out of the room.

"No!" Vash grabbed him and the First Leader took him by the collar of his coat and slammed him against the wall.

"What would you have, Vash the Stampede? Lingering pain and suffering? Yet, that is your twisted way, is it not? Torture in the guise of hope. Perhaps tomorrow will be better." He spat in derision. "Tell me, do you consider your people so little that you would let them swallow torment and pain, and force them to endure while you speak platitudes of love and peace? Your words are mockery and your life a twisted defilement of the very principles you speak."

"You let him go!" Milly hefted her stun gun. "He fights for everyone, and it is because he did that people can live on this world! Even you worms! You're the evil one, speaking of killing like it is a mercy!"

The First Leader released Vash and turned slowly to Milly.

"Evil? Interesting choice of words from a human who cannot feel the pain of others because they live their lives isolated and selfishly in their own sculls. I know these plants understand. They can feel what each other feels. What you call evil is mercy. Sometimes the grim reaper is the greatest mercy of all. Out of respect for the plants here, I will not harm you. But think on this. When you are racked in pain, unable to contribute to life, dragging down the resources of a place where resources are scarce. Is it not more honourable to allow others to flourish and gracefully to give up your life to aid this?" He glared at Milly.

He turned to go, his slit eyes flat with anger, but Vash caught him at the door.

"No - no one, e-even one so badly damaged that they cannot function, is worthless." Vash declared stubbornly. "N-no one has the right to take the life of another. We will show you that. I know he hears my words in your mind. You had no right to kill those worms. Killing innocent humans to get to those who did this, is, is wrong. And, and, do you know why these humans did this? Do you?"

"They used plants and worms to augment their own inadequate bodies to produce super soldiers."

"We know that now. But why?" Vash asked.

"They use those soldiers against the worms." The First Leader said.

"If they just left the worms alone, they would not have to bother about you." Vash said. "Why are they making soldiers?"

"If I knew, don't you think I'd be kicking them for it already? We've both just discovered that they're using _plants_ as well as worms. Go and do your own investigations, Vash the Stampede, and if you don't want our services as mercy killers, then sort out the problem before we do."

He shrugged Vash's arm off his shoulder and walked across the hall and hauled a window open and crouched on the sill, then turned back to them.

"You have ten minutes before this building implodes. If you have not acted before then, we will remove the plants and eliminate the scum inside."

"W-what!" Vash sprinted for the window as the man leaped. A large sandworm reared up and caught him neatly on its head then they both dove through the ground, the gaping hole it left behind collapsed taking part of the road with it.

Livio set off the fire alarm and the sprinklers came on, drenching them and the plants in the room.

"Thanks." Vash muttered grim gratitude, while the others yelled in surprise and complained. Livio shrugged and hefted his gun.

"I figured you would want the people out."

Vash clamped his hand over his shoulder where the bullets had grazed him earlier. The water made his wounds sting as if they were on fire. Livio did have a point, there were solutions other than to running around shooting up the ceiling and yelling at people to get out. He grinned at the man, delighted by his resourcefulness.

"What are we going to do about the plants?" He asked as Vash turned from the window and shoved his sodden hair out of his eyes.

"We'll think of something. They got them up to this level; there must be a cargo lift somewhere here." He glanced into the room where Abe, Calor and a rather groggy Zachery were lowering the plant cradles down to the ground.

"You take that way." Livio suggested and walked off back the way they had come, checking the doors and rooms. Ten minutes. How could they get the plants out in ten minutes? He had only ever seen them move plants within bulbs, how did one move them without. He shook the water out of his eyes. Of course, they could fly, but these sisters could not, they were unconscious and their wings had been taken.

There was a whistle of a mortar and the whole building shook. He clapped his hands over his ears as the explosion sent a shock wave, then a thunderous roar billowed over them. No, no, no! They had been given ten minutes! He stuck his head out of the window to see a building in the opposite block crack and fall in on itself as another two mortars hit it.

He turned and ran; they _had_ to get the plants out! At the end of the broad passage, he found a cargo lift.

"Oi! Livio!" He yelled. "This way!"

Abe and Milly appeared at the door, pulling a wheeled cot laden with one of the unconscious plants behind them. Vash ran over to assist them. They all hauled and shoved until they had the plant out in the passage.

"How long can they survive without being connected to power?" Milly asked him, gasping for breath with the effort.

"Wha? What? Er. I dunno." He glanced at Abe and grabbed the edge of the cot and helped them haul it down the passage. He had not realised how _heavy_ a plants dead weight was. He glanced to Abe for the answer.

"Whatcha looking at me for?" Abe protested. "I'm not a plant doctor. These sisters of ours are very different to us!"

"Abe didn't you listen at all at school? They'll die within a few days." Calor called. "It's like a human not drinking water. They'll survive until we can get them connected at the power station. Get moving!"

"Not my fault that the stuff they taught you at school eighty years ago is different to what I learned!" Abe grumbled.

"That was thirty years ago, you young whippersnapper." Calor glared at him. "Get back and help Zachery with the next plant, you go too, Vash. Milly and I can ride the elevator down.

"We've got to get the power plant out!"

"Vash, that'll be tricky!" Abe said, as he helped shove the third and final cot along the passage.

"We can't leave her here!"

"I know that. But, she's awake." Abe pointed out. "We might be independents, but she can still override our minds."

"I'll explain the situation." Vash said stubbornly.

"Good luck..."

There was a sudden absence of sound then an explosion so percussive it left them flattened on the ground and their ears ringing. Vash found himself slumped half on the cot, and dazedly raised his head. The ceiling boards warped with the weight of the debris above and some caved in. He leaped up to deflect the worst of it from the unconscious plant. The others hauled and pushed at the bed. The lift squeaked open and a white faced Milly, and a furious Calor helped them tug the last plant into the lift.

"They said ten minutes!" Calor hissed in fury. "It's been seven!"

"Hurry!" Abe called. "Vash and I'll bring the power plant. Livio'll keep the security off us."

.

They ran down to the next level, expecting to find people guarding the plant. The place was deserted. Vash breathed shallowly, his wounds still stung and his back ached from where the ceiling had struck him. He narrowed his eyes, thankful for the adrenaline coursing through his body, this was going to _hurt_ tomorrow.

"Bloody humans, running off without the slightest damn care about the plant who kept them in comfort for so long!" Abe growled. He marched in to the room trailed by Vash and Livio.

"All yours Vash." He swept his hands at the plant who turned to stare at them with her wide blank eyes.

Vash walked over and held out his right hand. She took it with two of hers and he felt the strangeness of the collective consciousness of the plants engulf him. Collecting his wits together after the initial jarring awareness was helped by the second explosion that shook the building.

"We need to leave." He spoke and showed her what was happening.

He felt guilt crawl up his throat as she questioningly brought to mind all those in the hospital below her, dependant on her power.

"They didn't evacuate the patients?" He breathed in horror.

"Vash we need to leave now!" Livio muttered. "We have a minute to get out of the building."

"We can't." Vash said faintly.

Livio gave him a harsh stare.

"Then everyone dies, including her, us and the patients."

"No. There has to be a way!" Vash exclaimed.

"There is." Abe mused, gazing at Vash speculatively. "You're not under a limiter. Merge with her power; take out the bombs and save the people. You could also drive the sandworms back."

Vash turned to Abe aghast.

"Do you have any _idea_ what you have suggested?" He asked, sickened.

"You can do that, can't you Vash?" Livio perked up. "Just to help us out."

Vash stepped away from the plant and away from his friends.

"No." He shuddered.

"You're not going to let them die." Livio declared with a calm faith and watched him to see what he would do. Vash wondered what he had done to inspire such trust.

"There has to be some other way!" He fretted to himself and turned his back on them.

Abe grabbed him by the collar.

"We have no time, Vash!"

(Why so much pain and fear?) It was a shared puzzled sentiment rather than a question.

"No!" Vash snapped at the plant as she took his hand. "Don't you understand?" He breathed and flipped to thoughts as words failed him. He showed her Knives and how he had done it. She corralled his memories and flooded his mind with her own of the same event. The communion with all of her sisters, and how the confusion and the tension that such close proximity had both bonded and repulsed them. Vash cringed as she lifted out one memory in particular, of him struggling free of the ark. Then she slammed the next memory behind it of him routing the power his brother had tapped to separate them all. For a moment, he had been in control of the fused entity. He knew how it was done. He felt her slip her fingers through his and clenched her hand waiting for him to lead.

He protested silently, in agony. He was not Knives. He showed her the way his brother had kept a dominion over the plants, seeking power, seeking strength and draining them so that he might have what he desired.

He sensed a mild confusion then a spark of fear through the plant.

"Vash! We have twenty seconds!"

A thunderous roar shook the building and half the front cracked and fell away. Vash found himself clinging to the plant with Abe and Livio. The First Leader stood atop the sandworm and they both peered in at them.

"You lose at your first trial. You cannot even take _plants_ to safety, let alone those miserable humans you so dearly protect!"

"Is mercy such a despicable thing that you would not grant it to another?" Livio roared, and took a flying leap across to the sandworm, catching the First Leader and the two of them went tumbling, skidding and fighting down the length of the worm. The worm twisted on itself, hissing and snapping at them.

Vash turned away as the plant pulled at his arm. He was a little startled to see her twisting around to reach for the couplings that linked her to the life support. Abe was trying to assist her in disconnecting herself from them.

"H-hey! What are you doing?" Vash called.

Abe smiled at him a little sadly.

"We have ten seconds. She can get free, at least allow her that."

He pulled the last of the cables free and the plant shifted cumbersomely, then Vash felt the power surge through her and her form shifted rapidly and suddenly they were surrounded by hundreds of winged protrusions off four great arms. Vash yelped inelegantly as she grabbed him by the back of his coat and leaped. By the yells Abe was giving off she had him too. September was suddenly spun out below them, diminishing in size as the plant climbed for height.

(The people!) The plant called, crying in his mind, images of hundreds of strange mutated folk paraded before him, each small yet powerful, and... and... Vash gaped down at the hospital in horror. Each was a part of their sisters, as in taking in the plant parts to enhance their power, they had somehow become assimilated into the shallowest part of the shared consciousness. They were not plants, but all plants resonated with them. This was what they plant had been trying over and over to explain.

"I can't!" Abe howled over the wind and the pandemonium of the battle below.

There was sudden explosion and Vash shuddered as he felt the terror resonate through the collective consciousness. He was startled to discover that the hospital below them still stood. He turned toward the source of the pulses of fear and torment just in time. The power plant station was burning and a widening pulse of plant energy was headed their way. Someone had fired Chronica's gun. That meant there was another independent involved. He reacted instinctively.

He threw out his hand and drew at the power Chronica had dumped on him earlier that day. He had never wanted to do this ever again, and had never expected to live through it. The pulse he released was enough to cancel the energy headed their direction. He shuddered as the shock wave from the strike rippled over them. The plant sent out tendrils and feathers to protect them. The next instant he was aware of the hospital. Then the knowledge of the explosives and the timers. He caught the terror rippling through the people below as if they became aware of their same predicament. The collective mind was buzzing with panic. He wished he had some more bullets; they were good for directing power. He reached out as the plant kept them hovering above the building. Did he have to use the motion and power of the bullets to direct where the gates opened? Distance was a factor. But distance did not need to be a factor if he were beside the explosives and using the power to dismantle them? It came easily then, and he realised that the plant had somehow caught on to his desperation and had synced with his desires. Feathered arms twisted out and smashed in the windows throughout the hospital. They scythed along passages and cut through walls. They grasped the bombs and called a vacuum of power as the entire thing set off.

He screamed at the agony of keeping it contained as must. He felt the plant feeding him power to stay conscious and then it was over. He hung for a moment disorientated then gingerly tested the areas, but there were no explosives left in the building. He slowly withdrew, shuddering. The hospital still stood, and now hundreds of peculiarly altered people were staring up at him through the windows. He could feel their confusion, bewilderment and alarm at their inclusion in what had happened. He had not been able to work out how to keep them out of the mental loop.

They were safe. Which was more than Chronica and the power plants were. Sensing his desire, the plant spread her wings and sculled across the skies to the power plant. Vash had to take out several mortars before they landed. Abe scrabbled to his feet, and to their astonishment several engineers ran out to meet them. Now that they were there, the power plants in their orbs seemed fine. He gaped at them in confusion as the engineers hauling a cable after them. Vash turned to the power plant that had carried him and she gazed blankly at him with a pale smile on her face, then released him. He shuddered as he felt suddenly cold. That power had been like a furnace around him. He glared at her and she smiled broadly and almost laughed. She had left him with even more power than Chronica had dared share. He reached up and stroked her head, in sorrow and wonder.

"Thank you sister." He whispered.

He staggered as the collective mind overwhelmed him for a moment, confusion, gratitude and fear, all with him at the centre of it all. He smiled crookedly, and walked away as the engineers brought out a large cot for the plant to rest on while they wheeled her to more pleasing accommodation than the open air.

"You!"

He turned in delight as Chronica stormed out from the building. His expression fixed in a sudden guilty rictus as he caught the fury seething across her face.

She marched up and grabbed him by the front of his coat and yelled directly into his face.

"You are the slowest, thickest, stupidest plant I have ever had the misfortune to meet!"

"Wha?" Vash breathed; relieved she had not hit him. It was all he could do to stand up. "What did I do?"

"Leave off, Chronica." Abe said as he walked over. "He doesn't know anything of how to navigate the shared consciousness."

"Oh yes he does! And he's bloody lucky I know him a little better than he knows himself." She snapped coldly then turned to Vash with a low growl. He cringed, this was worse than the yelling. "If I hadn't shot at you, would you have even dared to get over your pathetic terror and help others?"

Vash gaped at her, bewildered and disappointed that _she_ would do that.

"That was you?"

Chronica released him, her pale eyes flashing with anger.

"Can't you feel them? Those puny lives that are linked to ours?"

Vash stared at her.

"You only wanted them rescued because they were linked to plants?" He whispered in horror.

"Yes." Chronica snapped. "I'm not living with months of shared nightmares of death; I've enough of that thing in my past thanks."

Vash lowered his head.

"I'm s-sorry." He said quietly.

He turned away in the silence that followed and looked out at the city. He then glanced back and grinned at Chronica and Abe who were giving him distinctly odd looks.

"I've gotta go help Livio!" He ran for the jeep Milly had left by the power station.


	35. Chapter 35

_**Chapter 35**_

Chronica folded her arms and Abe sucked in a breath at the way she tapped her fingers on her arm. She was furious.

"Mora, tell me, how does the Emperor keep Heaven's Gate's in check if they're anything like him?"

"It's Abe Jefferson now." Abe reminded her. "And I only served in the Prince Zolfilian's guard for a brief while."

"Well?" Chronica asked.

"Hah. Mostly they are regular people, one forgets they are plants they so seldom need the power they have. Yet, on occasion, where they need to use it, they _never_ do it in the way you or I would. We should have guessed he was a Heaven's Gate simply by the way he thinks."

They watched Vash tried to back the jeep out of the yard and almost collided with the wall.

"You know, he can't drive very well." Chronica mused.

Abe was running before she finished her sentence.

"Oi! Vash, wait up! There are bounty hunters out there!"

* * *

They found Livio and the First Leader in one of the main plazas of September, the space being wide enough to accommodate a sand worm, two armed men and buildings for spectators to hide behind.

"So if I win this, you leave September and never return?" Livio swept his bloodied arm in an arc at the partially wrecked buildings around him.

"You will never win." The First Leader scoffed. "You have no idea what you're doing and you defend the wrong people! How can you back these torturers and murderers?"

Vash elbowed his way through the crowd. He could see what was going on quite easily, being at least a foot taller than most of the people in it.

"I-" Livio began as the First Leader clenched his fist and held it up.

"We can use all weapons at our disposal?" He murmured with a malicious smile.

"No!" Vash yelled as suddenly people ran out from the crowd and gathered around the First Leader and the worm.

"What's going on?" Abe asked, as he caught up to Vash.

"This is the power the hive mind has." He breathed with sickened horror. "They, they've just never used it openly before."

"They can control people?" Abe scoffed. "So can we. It's just not done, ya'know?"

"Don't!" Vash pleaded, and he watched Abe until the plant gave a reluctant nod. He turned then and pushed through the crowd and stumbled out into the arena.

Abe watched him go, clenching and unclenching his hand.

"Not like I can." He mumbled to himself, and then glared sadly up at the skies. "I never thought that limiter could be a curse." He watched as Vash barrelled into the group of people from behind and grabbed the First Leader. "You could, Vash, but you won't."

"Vash the Stampede!" The First Leader grabbed him and they staggered in a circle for a moment, wrestling and both trying to stay upright.

"Vash the Stampede?"

Abe watched the crowd around him suddenly bristle weapons as the bounty hunters found their target.

"You seem to have made the wrong sort of friends here!" The First Leader growled, his eyes flickering around at the sudden increase in gun barrels.

Vash gave his new audience an appalled stare.

"We have saved the plants. You've destroyed the factories." Vash pleaded. "That was the purpose of this whole attack."

The First Leader eyed him.

"Not such a fool." He murmured. "Perhaps you can be taught. We will return to the desert, make sure that such things do not happen again."

"W-what?" Vash called as the First Leader leaped up as the sand worm swooped down. He swung himself onto the worm's neck.

"This is not the only occurrence." The First Leader called then the worm dove. People screamed and scattered, while the group around Vash coughed and spluttered. Vash didn't wait around to see the group the hive mind had tamed eject insects from their bodies. Some things were revolting.

Livio appeared at his side as he hurried swiftly through the ensuing chaos and dodged into an alley.

"Usually I'd be pissed if someone interrupted my duel, but this time I'll overlook it." Livio grumbled.

Vash grinned unapologetically.

"Ugh." Abe trotted up. "Those people were puking insect grubs, like it was inside them."

Livio and Vash grimaced knowingly.

"Hey! He's there with that crazy man who challenged the sand worm!"

A skinny man with a very large uzi pointed them out to the crowd in the plaza.

"You have the worst luck!" Livio exclaimed furiously as they sprinted down the alley. "Who else would get chased after they had saved the entire city!"

"S-sorreeeey!" Vash called as gunfire filled the air again.

.

Vash, Abe and Livio perched atop a wrecked wall from where they could get a good view of most of September. The worms were gone and most of the bounty hunters were combing the desert for them.

"I think we figured out what they came for." Livio gestured a gun in the direction of the hospital they had helped save.

Vash shifted uncomfortably and stared out at the desert. He was buzzing with adrenaline and could hardly sit still.

"That's not the Knives I knew. Nor is it the hive mind I knew." Livio complained. "Vash, what is going on?"

Vash stared anxiously out at the desert, trying to think. All his mind wanted to think about was running and pain.

"You don't know." Livio concluded and gave a heavy sigh.

"What would be their usual reactions?"

They both looked at Abe who was standing on the wall peering out at the sands.

"Knives manipulates those who serve him and indiscriminately wipes out humans." Livio explained. "He has the power of a great general in the way he can convince people to follow him. The loyalty he inspires is like nothing I have ever seen. People will willingly die for his cause. Then the worms usually keep to their own affairs. The hive mind has great power but does not use it, and certainly does not mount an attack like this."

Abe frowned.

"But wasn't Knives defeated? Or at least his followers scattered? I don't know much about this hive mind, or the worms, but I've been on other worlds where the fleet has tried to assist the locals. It's never been such a disaster as this place, but I'd say if you're noticing a change then perhaps the change comes from the Terrans?"

Livio barked a harsh laugh.

"Millions Knives, the worms and the insect hive mind ganging up together against the Terrans! Not likely! Knives is a dictator and the worms and hive mind will not be dictated, they follow those stronger than them, but out of choice. They will not be ruled."

"Oh." Vash said quietly.

Abe and Livio stared at him.

"What are you thinking?" Livio asked.

Vash grinned and pointed.

"Chronica has just spotted us. It looks like the engineers want a word."

.

The wall they sat on had once been part of a tower block that had stood alongside the power plant. They clambered down the stairs and crossed the rubble-strewn street.

Milly and Zachery were there amongst the engineers. Zachery had a bandage around his head and held his hand over his eyes as if he were plagued by a harsh headache. Milly helped him over to them. Chronica had a cool aloof expression on her face and she strode gracefully over to Livio and stood beside him to glare at the engineers.

"Er." The chief engineer stepped forward and focussed on Vash. "Your reputation is well earned, Vash the Stampede."

"Aw, thanks!" He grinned.

The chief engineer gave him an unimpressed glare.

"Humanoid Typhoon, Natural Disaster..."

"Hey, that was those worms!" Livio protested, pointing out at the desert.

"Yes? Then why do our sources tell me that the confrontation between him and the worms set this off?"

"You have no idea what happened, do you?" Abe breathed in fury.

"You have four new plants to care for, _engineer_ Matherson." Chronica interrupted him. "We're leaving. We'll be back to check on your progress with those plants."

"You? You're a soldier, not an engineer!" Matherson snapped back grouchily.

"Not that we aren't very grateful for your protection of the station!" One of his juniors piped up.

"Ed." Matherson glared at him and the young man fell silent.

"Let's go." Chronica turned away.

"Chronica, wha- yow!" Abe protested and winced as she grabbed him. (Ow, Chronica, I'm hurt damn it, let me go!)

She ignored him.

(Let's go.) Chronica snapped at all of them.

They clambered into the jeep and drove off. The moment Vash sat in the back seat he felt exhaustion and pain wash over him. His vision danced blearily for a while and he spent a great deal of energy trying not to throw up. Zachery put his coat over his eyes as if the light hurt him. Calor had to keep shrugging his lolling head off her shoulder as he drifted in and out of consciousness. Abe gingerly inspected the blood on his arm to assess the extent of the injury and eyeballed Chronica. Livio and Milly rode on the runner boards and Chronica drove.

* * *

"That young Thompson." Matherson murmured as they drove off. "I thought he was for better things than aiding criminals and questionable characters like Vash the Stampede." He clapped his large hands together. "That's enough standing around outside, we've got four plants to install." He grinned. "This way we'll be able to reclaim the rest of the city."

"Um, Mr. Matherson?" Ed murmured.

"Yes?" The chief engineer turned and glared at him as they trooped in to the station.

"You know Vash the Stampede is a plant, right?"

The Chief engineer laughed.

"You've been listening to those absurd rumours, haven't you young man? There is a vast difference between a human and a plant."

"Well, sir, that Chronica and two of their other friends were also plants. You can see it by their hair and eyes."

Matherson patted him on the shoulder.

"It's been a stressful day, lad."

"You don't understand!" Ed protested. "They are _plants_ , free walking, free thinking plants! And you just insulted their like, ya'know, boss, or something. What if our plants don't like that?"

"Ed." Mr Matherson said quietly as they reached the doors. He waved the others inside. "Look, I have read the reports the Feds sent us on Vash the Stampede and Millions Knives. I know you think that these men have some sort of affinity with plants. It's like that when you start off, this awe that the plants have over one. But you have to remember that they were created for power production, the outer form is just a biological containment..."

"I can also quote the engineers textbook!" Ed said stubbornly. "But, sir, just for a second, imagine if those reports from the Feds were right? That there are free plants, whachamacallit, _independent_ plants. And they were them. Then what?"

Mr Matherson turned and stared up at the sky.

"If all that is true _and I'm not saying it is,_ " he added swiftly seeing the fervour in the young man's eyes. "If it is true, then we've just narrowly missed becoming another Lost July. Think on that, lad."

Ed stood at the door as the Chief Engineer patted him sympathetically on the shoulder then walked inside. He looked up to the skies where he had seen them fire on each other with the strangest power he had ever seen. They had fought each other, yet had reunited together as friends. He did not understand what was going on, only that their business was darker and stranger than his colleagues even guessed. He smiled up at the skies and turned back into the power station. He had a job, they had entrusted the plants to them, and he would see that they returned to health.

* * *

Zachery sat on the edge of a couch as Vash cleaned out his head wound. They were gathered in the living room of the Thompson farmhouse and the place had become a general first aid area. Two of Milly's sisters were helping the others, but Zachery had asked Vash before his family could fuss over him. He spoke in a low voice, gritting his teeth as the antiseptic stung.

"I meant to ask you, before everything went crazy, what you are doing here."

Vash glanced across at Livio.

"You're helping him?" Zachery said surprised.

"He's a friend." Vash explained then wound a bandage around Zachery's head. He had been grazed and scratched and had a nasty jagged cut just near his ear. Any closer and it would have been his jugular. Saunders bodyguard had honestly tried to kill him.

"I don't know anything about plant twins, or missing children." Zachery lowered his voice. "But the First Leader and Knives mentioned something about an 'unapproachable' area a few hundred iles north east of December. I can't give you the particulars, but they asked me to up the quantity and supply of their orders. Aside from September, that area near December is what they are targeting."

Vash realised he had stopped bandaging and swallowed then continued to wrap the man's head. Considering what they knew, it was the strongest lead they had yet. He tied off the bandage. Zachery gingerly ran his fingers over it.

"You're hurt, man. I can understand you not wanting to strip off in front of this lot." He grinned at his sisters who were fussing over Milly. She was telling her wide eyed audience how she had got each and every wound. Zachery caught Livio's eye and with a slight flick of his eyes gestured to the door. They ended up in the bathroom. Livio leaned against the door as Zachery stared at Vash with a kind of helpless exasperation.

"Look at the state of your shoulder. Why did you keep quiet about that?"

"I-I didn't." Vash protested.

"It looks almost bad enough that we might have to get the doctor out!"

"I'll stitch it." Livio volunteered.

"It's not that bad!" Vash stood up hastily.

"Then what did you call me here for?" Livio asked, fidgeting with the blood on his shirt. The wounds beneath were what he dismissed as surface abrasions.

"That's for you and Vash to discuss." Zachery said, then stood up rapidly. "Can you do his bandages?"

"Uh…" Livio and Vash watched as Zachery stumbled across the room and sank down beside the toilet to throw up.

"Ugh." Livio cringed. "Never figured you for such a fader in a fight."

"Say that again when you have a headache as bad as I do." Zachery growled, his voice echoing in the toilet bowl.

Livio shrugged as if he'd never had a headache he could not deal with and never expected to get one.

"Man, you should be in bed." He tried by way of apology.

Zachery sat hugging the toilet bowl for a while longer then put his face on the seat.

"That is disgusting, man. Vash, I'll take get him to his bed. Can you wait?"

Livio dragged a protesting Zachery out of the bathroom.

Vash sat unbuckling his body armour. There were a number of bruises and scratches across scarred areas that he wanted no one to touch. They were too sensitive already and now they just hurt. He wiped salve over them and stuck plasters in place. Livio returned.

"He's not got concussion as far as I can tell." He mused and sat down opposite Vash. "You seem to be managing." He observed. "Want help?"

"The shoulder is a little awkward to reach." Vash admitted.

He was surprised at how gentle Livio was, but it still _hurt_. He wriggled and twitched and grumbled.

"Ow, ow, ow. Ow!" He hissed through his teeth and jerked his shoulder away. After cleaning the wounds and taping them closed with plaster Livio laughed quietly.

"You're worse than some of the kids."

Vash gaped at him feeling his heart break; he had lost sight of the fact that Livio also had the Orphanage. He felt doubly awful for dragging the man away from that care. It took a moment for him to be able to breathe through the agony of regret. If only he had not lost the twins.

"What did Zachery want you to tell me?"

Vash raised his head as Livio brought him back to the present.

"He says the worms intend to attack some place north east of December. Something that Knives said to him about the munitions order."

"That's the Worm's problem. We're not fighting their battles for them! All that tells us is that someone in December, or near there is dealing in plant and worm parts…" He fell silent and stared at Vash in horror.

"No." He whispered, his tanned face draining of all colour. Vash caught his arm as he swayed. Livio hunched over and planted his feet on the tiled floor to steady himself.

"We need to go now!" He rasped hoarsely.

"We need to eat and rest." Vash said regretfully. "We won't help your children by dropping dead in the desert."

"I'm not hungry." Livio snapped.

Vash eyed him, knowing what a lie that was. The man glared at him then wiped at the tears that ran down his face with jerky gestures.

"We'll end this." Vash declared quietly.

Livio clenched his fists and breathed raggedly.

The dinner gong sounded and Livio grimaced.

"I guess I am a little starving." He sniffed thickly. "I'll be down now, let me wash up, okay?"

.

Livio arrived a little late for dinner, and sat between Abe and Milly, opposite Chronica who was trying to work out what food on her plate would suit her pallet. Milly noticed how dazed he was and quickly took his plate and cheerfully dished generous helpings onto it then set it in front of him.

"Chronica was just asking what happened to us." She said, handing him the pepper so he could season his food. "You were in the thick of it, weren't you?"

Livio seemed to come to himself and tucked in to his meal and between mouthfuls told them a fairly edited what had happened.

"They what?" Chronica exclaimed, leaping up from her chair and leaning over the table to grab Livio.

The Thompson family stared at them. Zachery, who looked doped up on pain killers but otherwise okay was attacking his meal with determined gusto, winced at the noise. Livio gaped up at Chronica and did not reply. She released him and stood for a moment, her blond hair hiding her face as she bowed her head. Instead of sitting again, she stumbled for the door.

"Hey! Chronica! Wait!" Livio called and hurried after her.

Calor put down her knife and fork and gazed at Abe with a decidedly green cast to her face.

(I never thought of that.)

"Of what?" Abe said aloud.

Calor glared at him as the humans at the table watched the proceedings unfold with confusion.

(What they did to those plants, and those mutants – what will they do to Chronica's twins?)

Abe clenched his fist around his fork.

"Excuse me." Calor hastily stood up and hurried out of the room.

"What happened?" Mrs Thompson asked in surprise.

"Mother, any explanation they give will have us all doubting our sanity." Zachery said with a disarming smile.

His mother gave him a level stare.

"At least continue the tale to the point where you were injured, I would hear that."

Zachery shrugged and indicated Vash who was busy tucking in to his meal at the foot of the long table.

"Vash here challenged a sand worm. Livio did as well. We got into a tight spot and we had to help some people to safety and I got shot at. Milly took out the ringleader. She's really good at that sort of thing."

"Milly was involved in the fighting? I thought you got shot by bounty hunters like he did." She pointed at Vash. Zachery gave him an apologetic grin. Vash wondered what version of the story Zachery had fed his parents.

"Of course, Mom." Milly said with a smile. "It's my job to follow the plants around."

Her mother opened her mouth then gave an exasperated sigh.

"You have far too much of your father in you, the both of you!" She scolded crossly.

Mr Thompson grinned from the head of the table and raised his glass of wine.

"I recall an incident a few decades back where this blond beauty took off the hats of several tomas rustlers with two shots of her shotgun."

Mrs Thompson blushed and shot a furious glare at her husband.

"What's this Mom?" Zachery leaned on the table, intrigued. "We never heard that one!"

Vash marvelled, the young man wasn't even working hard at it, but he already had steered the conversation away from the day's events. He clearly wanted his parents out of his business.

"It was before we got married." Mrs Thompson muttered dismissively, then frowned as something occurred to her. "You were there?" She said to her husband in astonishment.

Vash caught the slightly puzzled stare in his direction and realised the game was up. He hastily finished off his meal.

"I'll see if Livio needs any help. Thank you for the meal!" He grinned at Mrs Thompson and hastily slipped out of the room.

"What happened?" Zachery asked on behalf of the wide eyed Thompson clan that sat around the table. Abe realised he was the only stranger present. He was not going to forgo a good meal and an entertaining story on that account. He shovelled some more roast potatoes on his plate.

"You tell it dear." Mr Thompson smiled. "You had a front row seat for all the action."

"It's not much of a story." Mrs Thompson said, tidily tucking the tendrils of grey hair that slipped around her face back into her bun. "These thugs had been harassing our farms for about three months on and off. Mostly they were tomas thieves. They were lucky they caught only me at home, if they'd met my father they'd all be shot through the head. They tried to intimidate me and I showed them off the land with the help of a couple of bullets. They never came back."

Zachery nodded slowly.

"Dad, what really happened?"

Mr Thompson smiled slightly.

"You might want to ask the young man who has slipped out so elegantly a few moments ago. He had blond hair then, as I recall."

"Huh? Mister Vash?" Milly exclaimed. "You met Mister Vash?"

Mr Thompson smiled.

"It appears so. Only he gave his name as John Smith and worked as a hired man on our farm, digging the vegetable gardens. We were on our way to deliver extra feed to the next farm along, but I had to take a detour. I was mighty sweet on your mother, so I always made an excuse to stop by, only when we got to the stables we found them empty. So we left our tomas wagon there and walked up to the house. When we arrived we found this confrontation. I was all for running out, guns blazing, but young John sneaked up to the window and waited for her to fire before doing some of the best sharp shooting I had ever seen. With a revolver! When they rode away blustering threats, he thought it prudent we go after them and make sure they were not in any mind to carry out those threats. We caught up to them on the main road and after challenging them to a duel, John outdrew and out shot their leader. The leader's second was a blithering idiot and he shot John after he won the duel, but he sort of dodged. We sent them packing with several wounds to remember us by and we never saw them again. John left the next morning, saying he had to move on. It was odd; he was only with us for the worst part of those three months, as if he knew we needed him."

"That is just like him!" Milly smiled happily.

"I always wondered how the saddle straps of the tomas's got loose!" Mrs Thompson laughed. "I only aimed for their hats. Why did he leave? We must thank him! Milly, call him back!"

Milly found Vash sitting in his room packing his bag.

"Mister Vash, Mom wants to see you."

Vash smiled slightly.

"We're leaving tonight. Chronica and Livio have gone into September to book bus tickets. We've hit a dead end with investigations here. We're going to bypass December en route, we'll take you home."

"What's wrong, Mister Vash?" Milly asked and walked into the room to sit on the chair beside his bed.

"Milly, you know the state those plants were in that we had to help down the elevator?"

"Yes."

"We think that might be the fate of the twins."

Milly's face twisted in horror.

"Oh, Mister Vash." She gasped.

"We've got to hurry. The only clue is that Johnston attacked from north December somewhere, we've got some ground to cover, but we'll find them."

"I'll help!"

Vash smiled sadly.

"Oh." Milly said standing up and waving at him. "Come on, Mom wants to see..."

"Here he is!"

"See he didn't run away like last time."

A crowd of faces appeared at the door, most of Milly's family, including Zachery. Some were carrying plates of food and still eating. Vash stood up and grinned at them with his hands raised.

"You caught me!"

"You're leaving?" Mr Thompson said, eyeing his bag.

"Seems half your story is true, Dad." One of Milly's older sisters mused.

"Something came up that I have to attend to." Vash said with a smile.

"John Smith, I have this one thing to ask of you."

Vash grinned a too knowing and guilty smile not to acknowledge the name.

"Watch over my youngest as you watched over us all those years ago?"

"Dad!" Milly blushed. "Haven't you read any of my letters? It's me who has to watch over him!"

"An honour sir!" Vash saluted, then slung his arm around her in a friendly hug.

Milly felt her ears redden, and ducked out of his embrace.

"Mister Vash!" She scolded him, then turned her back on him and faced her family. "C'mon, let me leave I need to go and pack, or they'll all leave without me." Milly waved her hands urgently at them. "Let me out." She reached the door and realised the others hadn't moved. "C'mon all of you, he needs to pack in peace. And Abe, don't you know it is bad manners to walk and eat?"

"Fwwaa?" Abe said with his mouth full, pointing his fork to the four other members of the Thompson family who were doing the exact same thing. "You need to pack too." Milly grabbed his arm and pushed him ahead of her.

"Careful with the shoving, you'll spill your Ma's best potatoes!" He protested and winked at Mrs Thompson as he was escorted passed her.

She smiled at him.

"I'll be sure to wrangle another invitation to sample your glorious cooking, Mrs T!" Abe called over his shoulder.

"Any friend of Milly's is welcome any time, dear!" Mrs Thompson declared.

.

Two hours later, they were sitting awkwardly in the back of the bus as it drove east towards December. Vash had buckled his body armour in place and wore his coat, but as it was distinctively bloody, he'd had to include his ragged brown cloak. As the bus rumbled onwards into the night the hum of the engine lulled him to sleep. He was among friends, and he was going to see December again, he blinked at the tears that came to his eyes. He liked December for too many wonderful and sad reasons. The worst was it always reminded him of Wolfwood. He stared at his reflection in the dark window and tried to see the stars. What would he have done in such a situation, it would have been noisier and livelier for sure. If he had been with him, perhaps they would not have lost the twins in the first place. He tried to find a position that did not pull at his wounds or put pressure on his bruises. He fell asleep to an uncomfortable rest and troubled dreams.


	36. Chapter 36

_**Chapter 36**_

December City

Meryl walked through the rooms of her small flat with a clipboard, checking off items and boxes against the list.

"For such a tiny flat, you have an awful lot of stuff."

She glanced up from checking the number of a box to where her uncle stood in the kitchen deftly wrapping her crockery and glasses in sheets of newspaper.

She tried to smile. He was trying so hard for her sake. She could only respond with as much liveliness as she could summon. It was not fair to drag others into her well of dark misery.

"I mean, what are you going to do with all these?" He held up her collection of beer mats she had from various saloons and bars. She had not meant to collect so many, but on emptying her case at the end of the first tour of the Outer, she had been startled at the amount. Since then she had deliberately collected at least one from every town. He shuffled through them.

"Will's Saloon?" He turned it over. "There's another Will's Saloon out there?"

"There was." She said a little sadly. "Before half of the outlying towns around May City were destroyed."

"So I don't have to worry about competition." He said with a slightly forced joviality.

"You know what?" She said suddenly, realising that this move would be exactly what she needed: a clean break. "Throw them away."

He raised an eyebrow but deftly shuffled the beer mats into a pile and placed them in the box of things that were not going on the truck.

A knock sounded at the door and Meryl jumped. Damnation. She knew that knock. No, she was dreaming, he had gone off with Livio and Chronica. Why would he be back in December so soon? Why would he be back here at all? He had Calor to keep him company and what use was Fifth Moon to him now? They had virtually betrayed every plant that had trusted them? The knock came again. She stood frozen and her uncle glanced at her, puzzled, then pointed at the door.

"Don't you want to get that?"

No. She did not. Getting the door was letting in everything she had worked so hard to shut out. The last three weeks had been numbingly awful, but she knew in her heart she had made the right decision. She had systematically shut down the company and paid off the last of her employees with the sale of her flat. They had burned all the incriminating documents in a bonfire at the orphanage and had sent letters of explanation, apology and warning to all their correspondents. The two other black haired plants who had taken up residency at the orphanage had been oddly understanding, to the point where Meryl suspected that they had something up their sleeves. It was one thing she realised that ran true across their race, they didn't let things go easily.

.

She saw her uncle's frown become worried and his hand twitched to his pistol. No! She did not want that. The first step was like wading through thick sticky syrup, the next few steps she almost ran for the door. She rapidly undid the latches and pulled it open. Outside, to her stark disappointment, stood Livio.

"Hello?" He blinked at her. "Meryl? Is that you in those oversized overalls?"

She glanced down at the bulky old tracksuit and slippers she had been wearing while packing in the dusty flat. She felt the disappointment evaporate in a rush of fiery relief. Thank goodness, it had not been Vash, for him to see her like this!

"Yes!" She said snippily.

Livio grinned with a teasing light to his eyes, then leaned back out into the hall.

"Oi! This was the room!"

Meryl leaned out, unable to stop herself. Vash trotted up to the door, the red tails of his duster trailing behind him, he grinned at her. She noticed that his left shoulder of his coat had some neat stitches in it. She recognised Milly's handiwork. What had happened?

"We found it!" He grinned at her and Livio. "We must have knocked on at least eight doors!"

"You what?" Meryl caught an instant whiff of trouble.

"Milly only gave us the building number," Livio explained, "and I couldn't remember your address except that it had a one and a two in it somewhere, so we've been to room twelve on every floor until here."

"And room twenty one, and sometimes rooms one and two." Vash added helpfully.

"I'm on the fourth floor..." Meryl murmured.

Both men grinned as if this hadn't been a problem for them. Good thing she was leaving, as her neighbours would complain about it when they next saw her. The idiots!

"Come inside." She waved them in, anything to get them out of the passage.

She shut the door and debated how quickly she could change out of the awful clothes she wore, and wash the dust and grime off her face. Leaving Vash and Livio with her uncle was not something she particularly wanted to do. As a pair they were quite intimidating, Vash in his red coat and spikey black hair all on end, and Livio with his tattoos and his silvery grey hair which now grew in wild tufts around his head.

"Hello!" Vash smiled at her uncle then his face fell as he processed the room around him. "What's happening? Are you moving? Are you leaving December? W-why?"

"I'm not going far! Uncle Will's saloon is ten iles outside December!" She retorted, then clenched her jaw closed. She hated how he flustered her. Trying to regain her composure, Meryl scowled, he of all people should know why she was leaving.

"There's nothing for me here anymore. I must go home, sort out my life and maybe get a job somewhere." She wished she had not said the last bit. Vash gazed at her with guilt in his surprised expression. There was no hint of pity, for which she was grateful.

"Oh." Vash said and frowned at the rooms again. From where he stood he could see the entirety of the flat. Her tiny bedroom, the even tinier bathroom, the kitchen and living room in which they stood. "Well, um, we kind of already got you a steamer ticket. Calor and Milly said to tell you to meet them at Black Tomb Pass. "

Meryl gaped at him. She hadn't heard much past the 'we' and 'steamer ticket'.

"Ah." She said, running his words past her conscious mind once more. In a daze she turned to her uncle. "Can you take my stuff home? I can't pay you for the storage yet."

Her uncle gave an easy nod.

"That's okay; you're good with promissory notes. When is this steamer leaving?" He asked Vash curiously.

Vash hunted through the pockets in his coat and pulled out a ticket.

"Four pm, ah, June the twelfth."

"That's today!" Meryl exclaimed. "Uncle Will, what time is it?"

He drew out his fob watch and inspected it.

"Three."

"Aaah!" Meryl exclaimed. "I've got to go pack." She darted into her bedroom, then darted back into the lounge.

"Tell them to wait for us!"

She hurried into her room and closed the door, satisfied that that would send them on their way. She heard a murmur of voices then the outer door close. She found the box with her clothing in it and hastily scratched off the packaging tape and then pulled out what she needed, her trusty travelling leggings, skirt and blouse. Her cloak lay folded below them. She had not had her boots repaired, but they would last at least a few months.

She headed for the door and was about to open it to make a dash for the bathroom next door when she heard voices.

"So tell me, young man, what is Meryl's relationship with Vash, you seem to know him well."

Meryl almost sank to the ground in mortification. Livio had stayed behind, presumably to help. She hadn't mentioned Livio in her letters home, so of course her uncle would not know him. On second thoughts that was for the best. She put her ear to the door the better to hear the conversation. Livio surely did not know much.

"She's determined, bitc- ah ha ha - _forthright_ and gives him such lectures!"

Meryl did sink to the ground then. Only her hand caught against the door kept her upright. It was Vash who had answered. Her uncle had mistaken Livio for Vash, when one considered his reputation and Livio's appearance; perhaps the mistake was not so difficult. Had her uncle seen nothing of the television program she had broadcast? She sighed, probably not, the only television in town was owned by Sweeny's Saloon, her uncle's archrival.

"But she is also kind, and sort of gets into places she shouldn't but it's good that she's there ya know?"

She heard her uncle laugh.

"That's the Meryl I know. So she lectures him does she? My late sister would do that to my son in law; it kept him on his toes." He chuckled to himself. "It's good that she's found a friend in him, the letters I got from her were always so short, but he filled the space to the point where she forgot to mention the names of the towns she had seen, or what she had done."

Meryl put her knuckles in her mouth. Had she done that? It had certainly not been a conscious thing. And what did her uncle think telling a stranger that?

"Hah! Really?" Vash laughed, a little too high pitched to be a comfortable laugh.

Meryl stood up. Time to break up the reminiscence party before her uncle recalled anything she had put in those letters. She could not remember in her panic, but she was sure it would sound stupid and damning. She opened the door.

"Uncle Will, do you know where I put the towels?"

Vash was standing beside her uncle helping him wrap her wine glasses in newspaper.

"You had the list Meryl, box twelve perhaps?"

She glanced at the list. He was right.

She fished out a towel and walked to the bathroom.

"Oh, and don't pack the bottom cupboard. Uncle Will, you choose three of the best for yourself and Vash you can have the rest."

She caught her uncle's startled expression in the mirror as she closed the bathroom door. However it was Vash's face that was a picture. His guilty blush and very cheesy grin, and above all, the way he caught her eye in the mirror. He knew she had been listening, and had played into it. She shut the door and put her ear against it.

"You're Vash the Stampede?"

"Ah, ha ha." Vash laughed then suddenly sobered up. "Um, ah, yes I am?"

Meryl almost laughed. Her uncle must have given him the old hairy eyeball, her rendition of it was nothing on her uncle's.

"What are your intentions with my niece?"

"Whaaa?" Vash exclaimed. "Ah, er. What's in the bottom cupboard. Ow!"

"Answer the question!"

Meryl leaned against the door, smothering her giggles in the towel.

"My intentions are wholly honourable, Mister Stryfe!"

"I am Will Jackson, Stryfe was the name of my late brother in law." Her uncle spoke with an antagonistic edge to his voice. Perhaps she had thrown Vash to the wolves. "What would an outlaw know about honour?"

"Er, if you put it like that..." Vash murmured, as if he was thinking about it.

Meryl rolled her eyes. He was so easy to derail.

"Where's that ticket? Are you travelling in separate berths?"

"Y-yes? Milly Thomson, Calor Saxonville and Meryl will be in one, I'm working as a caravan guard. I'm sort of good at that."

"Hmmm." He grumbled. "Just make sure that you bring her back to me with a smile on her face. I never want to see the dead look she had in her eyes until you and that other fellow rocked up. Understood?"

"Yes sir!" Vash said happily.

Meryl then realised there was a long silence, and that the conspicuous absence of the sound of shower water would surely be noticed. She reached over to the taps when she heard Vash give an exclamation.

"Oh wow! Old July Bourbon! Meryl sure knows her drink!"

"I should hope so!" Her uncle grouched. "She grew up in my bar, and I'll take that, thank you. And, no, yes that one, and that. The rest is yours."

She heard her uncle laugh.

"Your coat needs more pocket's Vash. Get a box and package them in paper, enjoy them on the steamer trip." He paused. "Meryl, it's quarter past! I'll have to unpack the truck and drive you to the steamer station if you take any longer in that shower!"

Meryl jumped. Damn, her uncle was sharp; she had forgotten that about him.

.

She emerged from the bathroom dressed in her work clothes. Vash was taping closed a large box. Her uncle had labelled it 'Miss Stryfe, Beauty Products'. She raised an eyebrow at him. It was an old joke, that everyone was beautiful after downing a bottle; she was unimpressed that he would use it on her. Vash smiled when he noticed her reading it.

"So that no one filches my supply on the steamer."

His guileless expression caught at her heart. Either he was too good hearted to take the first meaning or he genuinely did not know, and he had been around too many bars not to know. She turned away as he neatly wound another reason to love him around her heart. She caught her uncle's expression then, he was staring at the back of Vash's head with bemused puzzlement that everyone got on meeting Vash for the first time.

"It's half past. If you walk fast, you'll make the steamer with five minutes to spare." Her uncle informed her.

"I've got to get my bag!" Meryl fled into her room and her uncle followed her.

She flung all she would need into her pink travel case while listing instructions as to who to give her flat keys to, where to drop off the boxes that weren't headed for home and various letters and other logistics involved with emptying the flat. When she emerged, Vash was gone, as were at least eight boxes. He walked in again, lifted another two large ones and headed out again. She stared.

"He's an odd one." Her uncle murmured. "But there is a genuine love there, well chosen."

"What? Uncle!" Meryl hissed. "Nothing is happening. Nothing!"

Her uncle raised an eyebrow and Meryl knew she had said the wrong thing. If her uncle saw Vash now he would be in for the 'you break her heart, I break your legs' lecture, or worse the 'you play with her, I hang you within an inch of your life' lecture both of which he had delivered to her past male acquaintances much to Meryl's mortification. She darted out of the door with her bag.

"I will write!" She called and ran after Vash. She almost galloped down the stairs and caught up with him on the last flight down. She walked the last flight inelegantly gasping for breath as they entered the lobby. He set the boxes down on the stack in the lobby.

"Let's go!" She waved him after her.

He picked up his box, hiked it on the shoulder and followed her, a little alarmed at the pace she set.

"We still have time," he caught up with her, "and look we can see the steamer at the end of the street."

At the end of the street and across debris and buildings, they could see the steamer in the distance. It was blowing its whistle and letting off steam.

"I think we should hurry!" Meryl pressed.

Vash picked up an easy lope beside her. Meryl glanced back after two hundred yarz and saw her uncle standing at the door of her apartment block. She gave him a tiny wave. He raised his hand then pointed to Vash and made a very slight wriggle of his finger as if lecturing her like a child. Meryl suddenly felt like a child then, and put her bag down.

"A moment!" She said to Vash then ran back up the road. She gave her uncle a hug. The last time she had seen him had been six years ago. "Thank you."

He wrapped his hairy arms around her and gave her a bear hug as he used to do when she was a child.

"That's my Meryl." He released her and fluffed her hair. "And tell that tall scrawny outlaw to take some meat with his liquor; he's too skinny and dreamy for my liking."

Meryl smiled.

"I thought you didn't like him."

"I know the stories that follow him. Of course I don't like him, but that doesn't mean there isn't a drinking stool in the bar for him."

Meryl blushed.

"Get going!" Her uncle said gruffly.

Meryl walked back to where Vash was waiting. He rested his prosthetic hand on the tall handle of her pink bag. However, what caught at her heart was the gentle smile on his face, as if he had seen their interaction and not only approved but delighted in it. She self-consciously took her bag, between her uncle fighting tears, and Vash's heartbreaking delight at acts of love; she knew she was close to crying herself. She took a deep breath, but they would be tears of happiness. Her life had a purpose, and that steamer ticket had given her a new future. What was that phrase Vash always used? 'Your ticket to the future is always blank.' Meryl smiled and amended it in the privacy of her own mind. So long as the name Vash was scrawled on the ticket, she would take the ride.

.

Vash went off to join the convoy when they reached the steamer. Meryl made it to the end of a very short queue of passengers waiting to board. She heard a whistle she recognised and glanced up. Milly was leaning over the railing above her waving. She waved back as Abe, Livio, Calor and Chronica leaned over to see who Milly was whistling at.

The excitement hummed around her as she finally bordered the steamer. She headed to her cabin in second class, and Milly emerged out of the crowds around her and hugged her in the middle of the passage.

"Miss Meryl! I'm so glad you came! Livio told us all you were packing your flat to go back to your uncle's place!"

Meryl disentangled herself as people pushed around them and muttered about them finding a better place for impromptu romance.

Meryl smiled as Milly led her through the press of people to their cabin.

"I wasn't going to go without telling you, but this was the only weekend my uncle could get the truck. I wasn't leaving December just yet."

"Oh." Milly sounded relieved. "It's just that Mister Livio said, er, um, never mind."

They squeezed into the door and Milly closed it behind them. There were four beds, narrow cots bunked up against the walls.

"I thought you'd like the upper bunk." Milly said.

Meryl smiled. It was good having a friend who remembered her little preferences.

"So what did Livio say?" Meryl asked.

Milly frowned at her feet and folded her hands together in discomfort.

"He said you were leaving. He said you didn't look happy to see him at all. And even less happy to see Vash. What really happened Miss Meryl? Did you really fall in a Tomas trough? Or did you and Vash have a really bad fight?"

Meryl gazed up at her friend.

She sighed and sat down on the bottom bunk. The steamer sounded the departure whistles and they lurched slightly as it went into motion, the humming rumble of the movement vibrating through the entire cabin. Milly sank down beside her and watched her worriedly. Perhaps the clean break was not so much of an avoidance and pretence that the past had never happened, but a chance to face up to the truth. A part of that meant she couldn't keep her friend out of the loop any longer.

"Kind of the opposite." Meryl muttered. "We discussed some issues between us and I hugged him and he hugged me and now things are very awkward."

"But you don't act awkward!" Milly said, surprised.

Meryl smiled bleakly.

"That's the problem; we've acted around each other so long we can't remember how to be our natural selves. Or even if what we think we're acting is our natural self."

"So you do like him, or do I need to give him a few reminders to back off with my stun gun?"

Meryl opened her mouth to talk, but an odd cough caught at her. She blinked up at Milly.

"I don't know any more." She said tiredly, and then breathed out as the steamer let off another long whistle blast and jerkily increased speed again, signalling they were out of the city limits.

Meryl smiled then.

"But I do know this. I'm tired of hiding, and hinting and wishing things were this way or that. I will say how I think, and act what I feel."

"So you do like him!" Milly smiled happily.

Meryl watched her friends hopeful face and felt a pang in her heart.

"I don't know." She murmured. "Most of the time I want to pound him for being so, so, well, Vash! And then when he isn't around I feel all anxious inside, worrying about him and if he is hurt again. Then when I do see him again, he does something very silly and all I want to do is to pound him. Then he is helpful and kind, and then so soppy I want to smack him over the head and tell him to grow up. And I can't seem to say a nice thing to him."

Milly smile broadened.

"That statement qualifies this as love." Milly declared.

"What? I might like him, but I certainly don't love him!" Meryl grouched.

"Not so." Milly raised a finger. "My big big sister said she never met a man she wanted to murder until after she got married. She was talking about her husband whom she loves to pieces. Passion brings out the worst and the best in us."

"Passion!" Meryl exclaimed. "Never! Ugh. No."

Milly laughed then.

"Fine, say it like that and deny it again."

Meryl blinked.

"Again? When did I deny it the first time?"

Milly rested her feet on the edge of the bunk, put her elbow on her knee and propped her chin in her hand.

"Um." Milly thought for a moment. "There was the incident where you got all jealous of him peeking at Miss Maryanne..."

"Jealous? No!"

"...and then Miss Elizabeth..."

"That floozie? She called him SPOT!"

"...and when you defended him from Brilliant Dynamites Neon on the steamer..."

"That was just doing our job Milly!"

"... and then when we discovered what he looked like without his coat on and you still decided to follow him."

"It was our job."

"Yes, Miss Meryl." Milly said with a smile. "Only you spent that time staring so avidly at his chest and blushing that I'm surprised he didn't notice."

"I did not!"

"Or more recently, covering his coat in muddy hand prints as you hugged him."

"I did– er –okay, I did do that."

Meryl clenched her hands together so that her knuckles went white.

"Milly." She said in a small voice. "What happens if he doesn't love me?"

She was glad Milly hugged her then, as she had the chance to blink away the stupid tears that had leaked out unbidden. She was not going to pieces over him. It was not how one survived, by allowing ones emotions and secrets out. She tucked her face against her friend and hugged her back. Suddenly what she faced now was scarier than facing down any of the weird deadly enemies Vash seemed to attract. She blinked and shifted her head so she could stare unseeingly at the wall opposite. She was astounded at how terrified she was. And it was not only about love and the fear of heartbreak, but everything really. All her life, all she had done was to build walls to protect herself. She closed her eyes, feeling ill. It had been necessary as a small skinny girl in a dangerous world; she had had to learn to protect herself. Emotional distance and a sharp tongue had been her last line of defence between her inner self and the outside world.

She tried to push at the barriers she had erected, but they remained, steady and unyielding. It would take more than her wishing them down for her to overcome them. She snuggled up into Milly's hug as she felt the tears slip down her face, hot and damning. So far only two people had reached into her inner world in such a gentle manner so as to allow her to cry, Milly and one broom headed idiot. Yet, these tears she cried for herself, knowing that she could try as hard as she liked, but some things needed the assistance of others to overcome. The terror that ate at her until she mastered it, hinted at that. She would have to learn to trust, and perhaps accept the consequences of betrayal. She clenched her fists and withdrew into herself, and Milly released her as she curled into a ball.

"Get some rest Miss Meryl." Milly said. "I'm going up to find out where the others are."

Meryl hardly heard her.

* * *

Milly fairly flew down the passage, weaving through the people in the passages. She found Abe, Calor, Livio and Chronica on the upper deck, watching the desert pass.

"Where is Mister Vash?" She asked.

Abe raised an eyebrow.

"We haven't seen him Milly girl." He said, and bit his lip on the question 'what has he done now?' Milly had too fiery an expression on her face.

"Wasn't he working as a guard or something?" Livio asked.

Milly glanced back at the convoy behind them and clenched her fist.

"When are we stopping tonight?"

"We're not. We're driving right through until we reach Black Tomb Pass." Calor explained. "Milly, what's wrong? Why do you need to find Vash?"

"He made Miss Meryl cry, again!" Milly snapped, furiously. "I'm going to get some pudding, if anyone sees Mister Vash tell him I want to see him immediately!"

"That's not going to give him any incentive to find you." Abe said, but too late. Milly strode away as swiftly as she had arrived. He then glanced around. "Chronica and Calor, we'd better split up. People are beginning to notice us. The odd combination of black hair and blond just screams 'plants', don't you think?"

"We're headed for the saloon." Livio said and he and Chronica walked off.

"What's the balance?" Calor asked Abe.

"So far, eighty on Yes and ten on No."

"Here's another ten for the Yes." Calor handed him a ten double dollar bill and stepped away then paused. "Who sponsored the No?"

"Vash did. He overheard us, and wanted to know what we were betting and I lied to his face."

Calor grinned. "A bet? What does he think this money is for?"

"He thinks it's a bet to see if Livio will cut his hair again."

"Abe, that was so lame."

"He took it, and I was under pressure, it was all I could come up with at the time. It was also all I could say without laughing in his face."

Calor dug in her pocket and took out another ten.

"That's another for the Yes."

"Wow, you really want a Yes." Abe said taking it.

"It will make my life a whole lot less complicated, thank you very much." She said and walked off.

Abe pocketed the money and went to stand at the aft railing, watching over the steamer convoy. He could see Vash seated on one of the last tanks, watching their wake through the sand. He turned away before Vash could sense his gaze, no need to stir things up just yet.

* * *

The next morning Meryl met with Abe and Calor and paid them out as she had the others. That took the last of her money. Abe thumbed the wad of notes she had handed him.

"So this is all that is left of Fifth Moon?" He murmured.

"There is no more Fifth Moon." Meryl stated. "It does not exist. I deregistered it at the City Hall."

"Yet, there are plants out there needing our help." Calor murmured, mimicking Abe's gesture.

Meryl sighed, they were reacting in exactly the same way the plants back at the orphanage had done.

"Teres destroyed us." She said in a shaky voice as she stood. "Please don't make this harder than it is."

She wanted to leave them with a polite business like smile, but it was all she could do to walk out of the steamers dining room without crying. She walked to the upper deck and went to stand at the aft railing to watch the caravan that trailed in their wake. She buried her face in her arms and felt the wind tug at her heavy cloak. It was reassuring to feel all the derringers against her. The cloak always reminded her of her purpose, she was out in the world defending … what? She raised her head and glared out at the desert. They had a lead on the twins; she was there to defend them. Until that crisis was over, she could not afford to fall apart. Her eye caught a flash of red and she saw Vash standing atop a following truck with two other men. They were watching the rear of the caravan, and he was watching the steamer. She felt shock shudder through her. She could hardly make out his features, but knew that he had far keener gaze than most. She turned away and hurried inside, ugh, he had seen her. Why was she always at her worst when she was around him?


	37. Chapter 37

_**Chapter 37**_

Meryl stood on the upper deck of the steamer. There were many decks she could have surveyed the desert from, but she preferred the top deck because no one asked questions there. The small matter of her being able to catch a glimpse of a flaring red coat atop a truck in the caravan had nothing to do with her choice of location. The Black Tomb Pass was a broad valley through the mountains southeast of December. The rough town that gave the area its name was on the west side of the valley mouth closest to December. It was a gold mining area and this steamer transported the ore, trade goods, food and water supplies and other necessities, as there was no power plant in the region. It explained why they had had a quiet trip out; anyone wanting to attack the steamer would do so on the return journey.

They disembarked at Black Tomb, and Livio went ahead to hire a car. He returned with a brown jeep with worn seats and chipped paint. She had loaded up her pink bag on the luggage rack and Livio was busy tying down Chronica's case. She sat on the driver's seat making idle conversation with Milly who was busy readjusting the strap on her stun gun.

"I'm surprised this place is still operational after the war." Meryl remarked.

"People like gold." Milly murmured with a shrug. "It's good that they can work at something. At least there is money here."

A tuft of black hair in the crowd caught Meryl's eye. What was Vash doing sneaking away? Ah, no. It was not Vash, only he was the right height. No, now that she caught his side profile he looked exactly like Teres.

She stared at him in shock, not hearing what Milly was saying. It was Teres. With black hair. But they had met Johnston and he'd had blond hair? What was going on here? She leaped out of the jeep and ran after him. She shoved her way through the crowd and darted up onto the veranda of the nearest shop. There he was, a hundred yarz away, headed towards the saloon. She darted back into the crowd as Milly caught up with her, her stun gun under her arm

"Miss Meryl!" She called.

Through the gap in the crowd she saw Teres turn, see them, and then with a slight grimace of annoyance, he slipped into the crowd. Meryl sprinted, but he was long gone by the time she reached the place she had last seen him. She searched for a solid ten minutes but he was nowhere. She trailed back to the jeep with Milly miserably repeating apologies.

"It's okay Milly." Meryl said as Livio shot them a sarcastic stare from his place in the driver's seat.

"Take your time in the Saloon eh? Where're our drinks?"

"Miss Meryl saw Teres." Milly said unhappily.

Calor and Chronica turned to stare at each other.

"Damn, he's blocking." Chronica hissed.

"What's that mean?" Livio asked.

"He's hiding his presence." Abe explained. "Plants can sense the presence of other plants. And here comes Vash, at last. But we're pinned here if Teres is here. We have to get him."

"So you mean we now have time to stop at the Saloon?" Livio grumbled.

"No. You're on perimeter duty." Chronica grouched at him. "You can drink yourself stupid later." Livio scowled thunderously as Vash walked up with his brown cloak pulled around his shoulders and his bag slung over his shoulder. "Oi, Vash, Teres is in town." Chronica told him.

Vash's eyes flashed with fury.

"Why is everyone sitting here?"

"We just heard." Calor explained.

"I lost him." Meryl mumbled, suddenly horribly ashamed.

Vash nodded.

"Then let's look for him."

"He's got black hair and is wearing a suit." Meryl informed him.

"Which he can change like he did last time." Milly added helpfully.

"C'mon Livio." Vash said easily. "You and I can check the Saloon." He walked on, and Livio leaped out the jeep and hurried after Vash without a glance backwards.

"Men!" Chronica snapped after them and turned to glare at Abe with such fire in her eyes that he flinched. "The rest of you, spread out, check the town exits and someone watch the sand steamer. Abe, you look like one of this town's crazier inhabitants, that's your chore. Milly and Meryl take the southeast exit, Calor and I'll cover the north west. Meet at that stupid Saloon in an hour."

The moment they stepped into the Saloon, Vash hurried upstairs. Livio tramped after him.

"What's this bypassing the bar?" He protested as they came out on the landing. Vash stopped to peer through the window that overlooked the street outside. They could see the others dispersing and Chronica and Calor drove to the south east in the rented jeep.

"He hasn't left." Vash said grimly. "He's nearby, I can sense him." He worked the latch loose and opened the window.

"I thought the plants tried that trick." Livio scratched at his hair and pulled it back out of his eyes.

"I don't know what they tried, but I can sense he is here. You know that feeling in your gut you get when a bounty hunter is after you?" Vash stuck his head out of the window.

Livio nodded all too emphatically, he had foiled several assassination attempts by that sixth sense alone. Vash reached for the drainpipe nearby and gave it a tug to test it was firmly attached to the building.

"He's here. And the last two times he ran into us, he shot me and he shot Meryl. He doesn't know I'm here, so his target will be her. We're trailing the girls."

Vash did not wait for Livio to reply. He swung himself out, and with his knees and hands hauled himself up the pipe and onto the roof of the saloon. Livio leaned out to warn him not to fall off before catching himself in shock. He watched the man shinny up the pipe stunned at how confused he felt. That protective habit came from being around the orphans back home. He bit his lip as he realised he had been about to scold Vash like one of the kids. He loosened his guns in their holsters and followed before the plant could get too far ahead. He grinned as he clambered up; he had forgotten how it was tailing Vash's crazy antics.

Meryl walked through the town, her eye caught by every black suit, sand coloured duster and broad hat similar to what Johnston wore. It was blazing hot with no wind and sweat was making her heavy cloak stick to her back. Milly was gallantly keeping up with her stun gun at the ready.

"I'm so sorry Meryl." Milly murmured. "I didn't know."

Meryl stopped in the shade of a men's barbers where the shaggy clients sat in a row on the bench outside and smoked or dozed. It was near the southeast gate.

"Milly, it's okay. It was a mistake. He's wily. He'd have probably got away anyhow."

"I'm sorry." Milly said miserably.

"Um, excuse me?" Meryl called to the men who were watching them. "I'm looking for an old friend."

"Sounds like he owes you money." One of the shaggy men said with a grin around his pipe.

"Much more than that!" Milly stated indignantly.

The men chuckled.

"What's in it for us? I could tell you about everyone I've seen in the time I've been sitting here..."

There was a snort of derision from the last man dozing in the line.

"Don't listen to him, girls, he's only been here for the last five minutes. What's this debtor look like?"

Meryl gave a brief description of Teres. He would not have had time to change his appearance so quickly in the last half an hour, or so she hoped. Several of the other men shook their heads.

"Nope. Not seen him. But anyone who goes to the southeast usually goes by Karl's General Store 'cause there is nothing out there except sand, heat and death if you don't have supplies."

They walked back up the road to the general store. There was a crowd of people there as there was a delivery truck parked outside and some were trying to buy from the store, others trying to bargain bulk from the delivery men. They milled amongst the people as they shouted at each other, but did not find Teres anywhere.

They walked out into the street again, now hot and bothered.

Meryl sighed and raked her hands through her hair. As she did so she caught the glint of sun off a gun barrel. There was Teres, perched atop the roof opposite the general store, aiming a silver revolver at her. She screamed and shoved Milly out of the way the shot went off. It thudded into the side of the truck as other gunshots went off. Most of the patrons of the store had fled inside or had whipped out their own guns, searching for their enemies, several taking pot shots at Teres. He gave an inarticulate yell at the unexpected retaliation and skated down the roof on his boots as a car skidded up to where he was. Milly dodged out from behind Meryl, her stun gun claw took Teres in the middle of the chest and he fell back against the roof. There was a stunned silence as he slid off falling into the car, winded. The driver spun the wheel and drove directly at Milly. She tried to leap out of the way, but he swerved just before he hit her. The man who rode shotgun grabbed her and tried to haul her into the car.

"Milly!" Meryl screamed and tried to shoot out the tires.

The thug holding Milly received an elbow in the face and the driver was swerving so much with Milly fighting next to him that it was a miracle that she even hit the dust they threw up. Then suddenly there was a roar of a shout and Meryl heard the thump of a stun gun again.

The car continued its skidding wild progress down the road. Out of the dust walked Milly, without her coat, but holding her stun gun.

"Milly." Meryl called her voice hoarse with relief as the car sped off into the valley.

Livio brought the jeep to a screeching halt in front of the store. Vash leaped down from the roof of the general store.

"Did he hit you?" He demanded, as Meryl stared at him in shock. Hadn't he seen what had happened with Milly?

"No." She said, though she had grazed hands from falling badly. "But Milly." She pointed as her friend broke into a jog to join them.

"Get in!" Chronica yelled at them. "They're getting away!"

They tumbled into the back seat, Vash perched himself atop the luggage and took the rifle that Abe handed him and Livio took off in a cloud of dust.

"At least we now know what he's after." Chronica said over the roar of the engine.

"What?" Meryl asked. Her palms stung like mad.

Chronica gave her a surprised stare.

"He wants you dead. He only missed you because Livio shot him earlier."

"But he grabbed Milly!" She protested.

"I'm fine Miss Meryl!" Milly declared with a fierce glare at the car. She stood and hefted her stun gun as if itching to try the extreme range of her stun claws.

"Ah-." Abe pulled her back down into her seat, and continued his conversation with Meryl ignoring the dangerous glare Milly was giving him. "They could easily have shot her, but they didn't. They want you."

Milly's face took on an even more frustrated expression; Abe was preventing her from protecting Meryl.

"But why?" Meryl protested. "Fifth Moon does not exist any longer! And what did I ever do to him?"

There was a long silence as Livio sped after the dust cloud that was the other car. Chronica glanced back at Abe as if to indicate _she_ was not going to say anything and Calor simply turned and scowled out at the high canyon walls they were speeding past.

"Meryl." Abe said with a sadly frustrated expression. "Fifth Moon is an idea. The hope that someone will see the suffering of the plants and help them. I told you, we're arrogant, cocksure and powerful but because of that we're vulnerable. No one thinks we need help, so when someone kills us off, no one is going to believe it. Until you came with Fifth Moon. And the investigations we've done have unearthed such a conspiracy. We haven't had a chance to tell you about the Worms and the Power Plants, 'cause you've been avoiding talking to Calor and I. I don't know what we've done to make you ashamed of us, but we can help. We've got some more information for our plant investigations that could help with the rescue of the twins."

"But all Fifth Moon did was give that Johnston access to all the information on all the plants we were helping! It is such a liability it is not worth continuing!"

"Yes. We were betrayed. That is what betrayal does. But being betrayed does not mean you up and ditch all those who were hurt by the betrayal! You stand there and fight for them, damn it! What's got into you Meryl? I thought you were better than this?"

"But I caused it all! If I hadn't started it, then this wouldn't have happened!"

"Bullshit! I helped compose the archives Fifth Moon had. In fact even that dirty traitor Teres helped! And you know what, it is all Teres's fault! He is the betrayer, not you. Now, what were you going to do when you caught him? I'm interested to know that!"

Meryl gaped at him.

"I'd have shot him."

"Right. And then what?"

"He'd be dead." She said miserably aware that Vash was listening to all this. She felt like a complete failure.

"He's a plant. You can't kill us so easily. C'mon Meryl, you know that. In fact, do you want to know what you were going to do? You were hoping that he'd make it easy for you and he'd kill you."

Meryl stared at him, shocked. How had he known that half of her had wanted to be rid of the wretched guilt that plagued her?

"I, no, Abe, no, that's not..."

"You calling me, _who can sense what you're feeling_ , a liar?"

She stared at him, suddenly feeling exhausted.

"I can't do anything!" The last word came out horribly like an attempt to hide a sob.

"By yourself." Calor said with icy disdain.

"Huh?"

Calor leaned over Abe and stuck her face in Meryl's.

"You're not all by yourself in this mess! Look at all your friends around you who are also involved for a number of very personal reasons. And it is not only this group in this car. Milly's family, and the Orphanage and the plants that relied on Fifth Moon, and those we held correspondence with, everyone we've helped and have yet to help. You might be our boss, but right now you've lost faith in yourself, so you know what, we'll carry it for you. So shut up for a week or two, let us run Fifth Moon as your deputies and if you still want to retire after that, we'll give you a nice going away gift and a trip back to your uncles place. Deal?"

Meryl gaped at her.

"But I deregistered Fifth Moon."

"So? Simple matter taken care of, we got Livio to register it here at the Sheriff's Office. But 'cause you were too eagerly seeking death and ditching responsibility, we took the liberty of making ourselves your deputies."

"I wasn't ditching responsibility!" Meryl snapped at her. "I was trying to save lives! You realise you might die going into this? Johnston has killed how many other plants?"

"Which we know about because Fifth Moon made the effort to try and save them! Fifth Moon dug Abe and I out of the gutter when we ended up there and were at deaths door. Stop trying to do every bloody thing by yourself, and let others walk into danger alongside you!"

"But I can't protect you!" She exclaimed, breaking down at the end.

She flinched as she felt a gloved hand on her head.

"Really?"

She froze. Vash's soft question and the pressure of his hand on her head made her go cold.

"I can count several occasions that you've wormed your way into my business and helped me out."

"I was just doing my job!" She grouched at him, not daring to look up at him. She felt as though she would blush like fire or burst into tears and did not know which would be worse.

He patted her head and sat back up, watching the dust cloud that Livio was chasing ahead of them.

"Yes you were." He said quietly as if that settled things.

"We know the risks going in to this." Chronica said after a moment of silence. Her face was twisted with horror and her calm voice hinted at a powerful rage contained just beneath it. "But the risks of not acting are worse than those of acting. The way you are arguing, it would be logical to stop the car and to leave the twins their fate."

"No." Meryl breathed, her face crumpling. "No."

Chronica gave her a sympathetic nod then. "Let them bring you up to date on what is actually happening."

Meryl scrubbed at her tears and turned sheepishly to Abe.

"Um." She did not know where to begin with her apology.

"We went and visited Milly girl's farm!" Abe launched into the story without any preamble as if Meryl had asked for it with enthusiasm.

By the end of it, Meryl had her mouth hanging open.

"Knives." She breathed, eternally grateful that she was slumped against the car door. Had she been standing she would have fallen. She glanced up at Vash who was staring out at the car they were chasing.

"Saw him with my own eyes." Livio chipped in grimly. "There's something going on there that's very odd. But we think the Terran's have pissed off the sandworms even worse than they've pissed off Fifth Moon. The First Leader warned us that they did not give a crap about the humans involved, but the plants and the worms had tipped the scale for them. And to find Teres in this same area at this same time makes it too strong to be a coincidence in my mind!"

"They won't do that to the twins would they?"

There was a grim silence in the car.

"They tried to do it to me." Chronica said bleakly. "Yes, they would do it to my children."

"How did you escape?" Calor asked, fiercely, wishing to add this to her plan of attack.

Chronica glanced at Livio with a fierce expression of admiration but said nothing.

"Oh." Meryl said, remembering the rumours they had gathered of Livio's past, Milly had done that, as part of her tribute to Wolfwood. It was a strange and eerie tale of neglect, cruelty and an extraordinary redemption. The look Calor gave her was a statement of 'you'll tell me when we're alone'.

Ever so slightly, the car ahead of them slipped ahead with each ile. Livio who was riding the accelerator flat on the ground gritted his teeth in frustration.

"We're too heavy!" He muttered. "But if we stop to offload people and luggage we'll never catch them!"

"Toss our supplies." Calor said.

"And end up in the desert without fuel, food, warm blankets and no hope of following them after a day?" Chronica grated scathingly. "All the heavy things are the things we need, fuel, water and ammunition. None of that is going and an extra hundred pounds of clothing isn't going to make much difference."

"We'll be able to follow their trail." Vash pointed out. "Keep after them, they may make mistakes."

They drove through the dust and eventually exited the shadow of the valley. The afternoon suns beat down on them mercilessly. They could only see the car by the dust cloud in the far distance. Meryl washed her grazed hands and Abe and Calor checked all their weapons were loaded and at hand. By the time night fell there was no more dust cloud. Livio pulled over to the side and killed the engine.

"Why are we stopping?" Abe asked.

"Ran out of gas." Livio leaped out of the car. He began to loosen the straps on one of the spare fuel tank lashed to the rear of the jeep. "Take care of any personal ablutions now, as we're driving all night!"

Chronica pulled off the rug that covered the back seat and walked a short distance from the car and held it up as a screen.

"Ladies, here's the loo. Gentlemen, your ablutions occur on the far side of the car!"

They took turns driving. The first hint of daylight the next morning found Meryl at the wheel. Calor, who was supposed to be awake to watch the road, was asleep in the front passenger seat. Livio, Chronica, Abe and Milly were all asleep in the back seat. Vash had changed his perch from atop the luggage behind the back seat to sitting cross-legged on the front bonnet. He had claimed that it was a better place to spot from, but Meryl privately suspected he was warming his arse on the engine heat. It was freezing at night and everyone had burrowed together under the rugs that had covered the seats earlier. Meryl drove with her thick storm coat on and gloves.

Vash suddenly raised his hand.

"What's that mean? Must I stop?" Meryl called in fright, staring ahead in the gloom. The headlamps did not show up anything except rutted road.

"Kill the lights and drive slowly. Try keep on the road." Vash murmured, his eyes not leaving the point they were fixed on a few hundred yarz away.

Meryl reluctantly reduced speed and turned out the headlamps.

"What d'ya see?" Livio asked as he stood up and leaned over Meryl's chair.

Vash did not reply but pointed to the northeast. Meryl stared. Something there was catching the dawn light in a very odd way. It was as if it were a mirage, it shimmered a little with the odd light.

"The tracks go past it." Livio squinted out into the darkness.

"What is it?" Meryl asked.

"The one fault the cloaking devices have." Abe said with hushed awe. "That's one of our ships!" He continued with greater excitement. "One of the lost ships!"

"Abe." Calor interrupted. "If that is one of the Pieces of Earth Fleet, wouldn't they have an operational proximity defence?"

"Oh sh- Stop the car!" Abe spluttered trying to get the words out all at once.

There was a flash of light high above them.

"No!" He yelled. "Drive! Drive! Meryl floor it!"

She turned on the lights and jumped on the accelerator.

"Kill the lights!" Abe and Calor both yelled.

"What's going on?" Chronica asked groggily as Meryl killed the lights.

"Vash get out of my way!" Meryl yelled at him as he grabbed the windshield and half stood, staring upwards. She leaned out of the window to try and see the road in the dim dawn light. Vash's hand flashed down to his side drew his revolver and fired.

"Cover your ears!" Abe did so and ducked.

There was a thunderous explosion that lit up the night sky. Meryl squinted in the glare and her ears rang as Vash scrabbled around to reload his revolver and to track the other missiles that were sent after them. Calor clambered over the back seat take Vash's old perch on the luggage and tried sniping with the rifle. Abe took the free front seat and raised his guns, but let Calor and Vash take most of the shots. Milly held her stun gun, watching the road while the others were occupied with the sky.


	38. Chapter 38

_**Chapter 38**_

There was silence. Behind them, once they had passed the ship, there was no more shimmer to pin point its location and the perimeter defence did not activate.

"They'll send people after us if they don't want this reported." Chronica said, staring grimly at the place where the ship was. "And I've been here long enough to know that the desert will have our bones."

"Hey! Look there!" Meryl called, pointing with her chin, both hands occupied with the wheel.

Ahead of them was another car, still some distance away but now approaching them. It was visible by the pools of light from the headlamps.

"That must be Teres." Chronica said with a malicious glee. "Stupid fool is headed towards us, must have missed his turning."

The car turned off the road.

"Someone mark that spot!" Chronica instructed, "it'll be easy to miss if they who know the area missed it!"

.

The first sun rose as they swung off the main road onto the track the car had taken. The rising sun made it all the easier, the light and shadow throwing the tread tracks into sharp relief. Ahead of them in the distance, the car they were chasing threw up dust.

"They lost a great deal of distance with that detour!" Chronica said fiercely. "C'mon, just get them in range." She hoisted her bazooka onto her shoulder.

"Incoming!" Abe yelled and Vash turned and fired upwards at the missile, only to tumble over the windshield and land sprawled in the car on top of everyone.

"Ow Vash!" Abe yelped and tried to shove the man off him. "I almost shot you. Are you hurt?"

"Get off me, you broomheaded idiot! I'm trying to drive here!" Meryl yelped and hit the brakes as Vash got his foot tangled in the steering and almost sent them into the drift at the side of the road.

"Keep driving!" Abe yelled as Chronica fired her bazooka and shot the second missile out of the sky.

"I'm trying!" Meryl spat back.

"Drive!" Abe yelled, and fired with his left arm, his aim going wide.

Meryl floored the accelerator and tried to shove Vash's buttocks out of her face. She drove one handed as she kept him away from her as he wriggled around to find found solid footing.

"S-sorry!" He yelped on seeing her expression. He tried to disentangle his boot from the steering wheel and she pushed at his knee to prevent him kneeing her in the chest. He turned around and flopped into the front seat between her and Abe.

"Ow." He gingerly touched his bleeding shoulder.

"I asked if you got shot!" Abe scolded, concerned.

"It's my old wound from September." Vash caught his hand before he could touch his shoulder.

Livio stood in the back strafed the sky with bullets, catching the first missile.

"They're launching more, I'm gonna run out of ammo pretty quick!" Livio yelled.

"This was a trap! They wanted us to exhaust or annihilate ourselves on the ships automatic defences!" Calor exclaimed. "Turn back!"

"But Teres is getting away!" Chronica's voice broke in desperation.

"You gonna shoot down all them missiles they've launched?" Calor snapped and fired.

"Turn around Meryl!" Livio called.

"No! Don't!" Chronica exclaimed.

"Do it." Livio barked an order, then very quietly turned to the pale eyes of the woman beside him. "Chronica."

There was a sad pained way he said the word, but she fell silent and sat hunched up beside him, her fists clenched. She raised her hand suddenly and Livio caught her wrist as Meryl brought the car around and drove back the way they had come.

"Don't waste your energy on this." He murmured in the same steady sad voice. "Keep it for when you really need it."

"So, where to from here?" Meryl grouched as she crunched the gears in her haste. Vash was sitting right up against her and his gangly legs were too long for the shallow footwell. She had adjusted the chair so she could reach the pedals, not so he could sit beside her with his knees around his ears. His legs being all over the place did not help with her mangling of the gears.

"Just get out of range!" Calor snapped. "Guys, some help would be appreciated!"

Meryl drove back the way they came. Some of the mortars fell beyond the car and blasted plumes of sand into the air. Some took out sections of the road behind them, and others detonated in a rain of shrapnel above them.

Meryl scowled when Vash pulled her hood up almost over her eyes to protect her.

"I can't see!" She snapped at him and tried to shake it off.

Just as they left the detour, a flurry of mortars rained down on them.

"Get down!" Livio yelled.

The explosion was thunderous. Meryl screamed as the car was lifted into the air and landed further along the road with a bone jarring thud. She jerked the steering wheel around and struggled to regain control on the road, as Abe leaned right over Vash and clamped his hands over the wheel to bring the car out of the crazy weaving she was doing in compensating and counter compensating.

"Just keep it steady." He breathed his knuckles white with tension.

"Let go!" Meryl snapped.

Abe did so and gave her a very annoying pat on the head.

"Yes boss."

"You'll get your pay docked for a week if you ever say that again!"

"Hah! So I'm getting paid! Excellent! Fifth Moon is back!"

"Don't twist my words!" Meryl grouched.

"I'm not!" Abe protested. "Extra money will be good 'cause I'm gonna have to replace my bag and all."

"Abe, what nonsense are you talking?"

There was silence from the back. Meryl risked a glance behind her and found Livio sprawled protectively across Milly and Chronica and Abe still clinging to the back of her chair. All their luggage, was gone, most of it scattered across the desert in shreds, that which wasn't burned with a fierce enthusiasm fed by their spare gas tanks. Almost the entire rear of the jeep was gone.

"That's all our supplies." Calor said bleakly.

Livio gritted his teeth and with a grimace jerked a piece of shrapnel out of his arm. Chronica and Milly seemed relatively unscathed, save for a few scratches. Abe did not seem hurt at all.

"Keep driving." Livio instructed. "Let them think they got us."

Meryl continued along the road they had been following.

"They have deep space scanners." Abe pointed out. "They can see what is happening on the other side of the planet. Not gonna be hard tracking a car just yarz from their ship."

Livio frowned; disliking the fact that he did not know what Abe was talking about.

Meryl ignored the argument that ensued. It had been hard driving with Vash perched on the top of the bonnet, but now his legs were blocking the gear stick. He now sat forward with his arms all over the dash and peered over the windshield, staring at things through his yellow glasses. He had a yellowing bruise along his jaw line. She turned and glared fiercely at the road, furious at his ability to distract her. She sneaked another glance just to make certain of what she had seen. How bad had that injury been that it was still bruised a week later?

He then jerked upright and stood, clinging to the windshield, his brown cape and the tails of his duster whipping up around her face.

"Vash, sit down!" She yelled at him, shoving his clothing out of her vision.

"Oh." The way Livio said the word made her stomach plummet.

She grabbed hold of the annoying pieces of cloth and looked around for what both men had seen. Ahead was what looked like a village abandoned to the sands a over a century ago.

"Meryl, slow down." Vash said, in a strangely strained yet calm voice. First one thing now another - she could smell blood.

.

They drove into the village at walking pace. It was abandoned, but then Meryl noticed the blood splattered on the walls and the rank smell of faeces. This was freshly done. Though she had yet to see any people, or their bodies.

Then they drove into the town square. Perhaps thirty people lay there, none of them moving, most of them bloody, their staring eyes gazing up at the new day's suns.

Meryl sank back into the drivers seat feeling ill.

"It's a massacre." Chronica whispered.

Vash and Livio glanced at each other, sickened.

"Knives." Livio whispered and Vash hunched his shoulders slightly and a fiery look came to his eyes. He leaped out of the car and ran hastily among the people.

"It's that Johnston." Chronica spat. "Though I can see Knives cheering him on."

The others disembarked as Chronica and Abe helped Vash with the gristly inspection.

"W-why?" Vash asked with a harsh breath in his throat. He turned and with Livio ran through the village, inspecting the houses and shops around the plaza.

Meryl stood on the runner board of the car staring at the scene. It looked like a plant had done this or someone with a very sharp blade. Yet the blood was all over the rest of the village, but the bodies were gathered here. Why had they done that? Had it been Teres? The villagers wore very odd clothing which reminded her of someone she had seen, but she could not place it. The victims were young and old, male and female, there seemed to be no pattern. She frowned and looked back the way they had come. Unless the village had been drawing power from the invisible ship, then there would be a plant around here. She shucked her sand coat, and hiked her cape onto her shoulders. She headed for the post office and was rewarded with what she was looking for. Behind the blood splatters on the wall was a hand sketched map of the mail delivery points for the town. But look as hard as she might there was no power plant marked.

She walked out a few minutes later as Vash clattered up the stairs and strode in. He stared at the map for a few seconds and his face changed slightly. He walked over to the door and stared out at the people in the village.

"The water." He murmured to himself and ran off to the north.

Meryl followed him.

"What water?" She demanded. She was impressed that she had recovered enough fitness to keep up with him for a short jog.

"Huh?" Vash glanced back, as if surprised to see her.

"You said 'the water' and ran. What do you mean?"

Vash stopped suddenly as they reached the end of the street then flung out his arm to catch her and hauled them both back against the wall as a shot rang out.

"Hey!" He called. "We're here to help!"

Another shot buried itself in the ground by their feet.

Vash took a deep breath.

"I come here to honour the First Leader's command!" Vash called.

There was silence.

"Vash, what are you talking about?" Meryl asked.

"Can we talk?" Vash called, ignoring her.

"Talk from there!" An accented voice called. "We can hear you."

Meryl could not place the voice, it sounded like it was a very thick dialect of the December accent.

"We can help. We can help with the wounded and the burial of the dead. We will leave before nightfall."

"Drop your weapons."

Vash set his black revolver down in the dust.

"Girl, your weapons."

Meryl drew two derringers and tossed them after the revolver.

There was slightly derisive laughter.

"The whole cloak girl."

Meryl glared and handed her cloak to Vash who tossed it out into the street.

"Come on out. We would see you, Meryl Stryfe and your companion is no doubt Vash the Stampede."

Vash poked his head out and then gave a grin of delight.

"First Leader!"

"You!" Meryl exclaimed and followed him out from behind the wall.

In the middle of the road stood the same man who had shared the cell with them back in that town in the east. Now that she could see him in daylight, he was a well built man with broad shoulders and a keen gaze out of his yellow slit eyes. Vash looked around.

"Where is the worm?"

"None of your business, Vash the Stampede. You offered aid, we will accept it. Leave your weapons here as good faith, we will not touch them. This way."

The man turned and walked over to a house. Atop the house stood two other young men both had their guns trained on them.

.

Meryl was a little disorientated as they went in, as instead of the house having the usual rooms within, there was merely a staircase down a fissure in the rock that lead underground. A heavily armed woman fell into place behind them as the First Leader took them down the twisting flight of stairs. It opened out into a long narrow cavern about ten yarz down and each yarz they descended the colder it got. Meryl was shivering by they time they reached the cavern floor. It seemed the entire village was gathered there among the pools of dark water.

"Here's the worst. Do what you can." The First Leader pointed at a young man perhaps eighteen years old who was shivering on a blanket. The side of his head was bloody and his eyes were unfocussed and staring wildly.

"Have you gathered all the people here?" Meryl asked.

The First Leader did not reply.

"Can you let me go back for the first aid kit?" That at least they kept under the drivers seat. "I think Abe and Calor know more about this than I do, I can bring them to help."

"No. Him, I know. You, I know. No one else."

"But it will help your people!"

"If others heard of us, it would not." The First Leader turned away and Meryl jumped in fright as a worm slithered out from what she had thought was a pool, but was in fact a hole in the ground. The two of them crossed the cavern and vanished through an arch. She inched over to where Vash was doing what first aid he could administer.

"Go and help." He suggested and jerked his head towards the other groups of people. A little bewildered Meryl went from group to group, helping to wash wounds and bandage them. As she did so she began to gather the tale of what had happened.

"It was a Plant, like the Chieftain." A boy of twelve told her when she asked.

"It wasn't the Chieftain, hush." His mother gave her a scolding stare for daring such a question and pulled her child away once she had finished bandaging his hand.

"Dunno what caused it, but it was them damned sky devils." An elderly man chewed at his pipe and scowled at her as she washed out the graze he had on his arm. "The new ones. The ones who nuked the north of the world into oblivion."

Meryl had never heard the Terrans referred to by that name, but to these people it must seem that way.

"Not telling no dependant life leecher." The next young woman she helped snapped at her.

"Aw don't mind them young things." An old toothless grandmother lisped at her a few minutes later as Meryl carefully washed out the blood from her hair to try and see the extent of the injury. "They are frightened and confused. Too much has happened recently. They forget the long struggle. We are from dust and we will return to dust." She went quiet and peered blindly around the room with her cataract milky eyes. "I heard he is here, is that true?"

"He?"

"Vash the Stampede. The man in red."

"Yes."

She smiled.

"Then it is good fate that brought you here."

Meryl applied the salve that the villagers used and set about taping up the long cut. It did not need stitches, but it was not going to leave a pretty scar.

"Is that so?" Meryl asked wondering how this could be good.

"We should all be dead." She murmured. "That is what they did to the other villages. But something caused them to flee. You arrived. Good fate follows him, even in sorrow. I listened to all the satellite broadcasts. They can say what they like, but his fate is good."

It was as she encountered her next patient that she worked out what was bothering her about these people aside from the lack of a plant in the village. This man had golden eyes with slits in it. Most of the villagers did not, but were happy enough with such people in their midst.

"Who do you think did it?" She asked him as she helped him with the foot wound he had.

"Who do you think did it?" He asked in reply.

"Teres." She said without thinking.

There was silence.

"We have not heard that name."

"Perhaps you would recognise the name Johnston?"

The man's eyes widened and he set his mouth grimly. When she had finished he stood and tested his weight on it.

"Help me." He ordered and grabbed her around the shoulders as he staggered.

She tried to push him upright again and gave a furious squawk as he copped a feel. Without thinking she ducked away from him and slapped him through the face in fury. He staggered back and landed awkwardly on the ground. Others hurried forward to help him, glaring at her. Meryl then realised she had committed some faux pas as people refused her aid from then on. She retreated to Vash's side seething.

"You didn't punch him?" He asked as if he had caught the last of the exchange and was trying to work out what had happened.

"No, I slapped him. But he deserved it." She grouched

The First Leader then emerged again, this time with another broad shouldered man with his orange hair sticking up all over the place. He reached the young man whom Meryl had helped and Meryl was shocked to see him spit at him in disgust then walk on. Round eyed people watched them cross the floor to where Vash ignored them and concentrated on his patient.

"Our apologies. You are our guests." The First Leader said with disgust. "The dog will be punished accordingly."

"Let him live." Vash said without looking up.

There was silence.

"You ask much of us."

Vash raised his eyes with a flash of frightening fury mingled with great sorrow.

"You do not kill a man for that."

They glared at each other.

"I never realised this was what he meant by a soft heart." The second man said.

"This is the Third Leader." The First Leader said with a slight emphasis which might have implied a slight towards his colleague. "We wish to know why you bring such warriors into our lands."

"We chase a man who has kidnapped the children of my friends. We seek to rescue them."

"He fled to the east, yet you came north. Why?"

Vash raised his head and gazed at them and for a moment Meryl felt her stomach plummet at the pained agony she saw there.

"The Sandworms are not the only ones who can hear the soundless cries of the world."

Vash and the Leaders stared at each other.

"Your friends are seeking you. Our people have disturbed your companion. It is not good that we mix. Do not return here again. Go."

Vash tied off the bandage he was using and stood up. He fished a bottle out of his pocket and handed them to the First Leader.

"You will not kill those who are suffering. Give them this according to the dosage and let them sleep. They will heal, but give them time to heal."

The First Leader took the bottle between two fingers and gazed at Vash.

"Do not presume your aid allows you to dictate to us." He murmured. "We know the ways of survival on this world long before you plants or humans came. Go."

Vash gazed at them sadly before he gave a nod then turned away.

.

Meryl walked out into the sunlight, surprised that it was only early afternoon. She reclaimed her cloak and derringers. Vash checked his revolver and then holstered it.

"Meryl."

She looked up from shifting the heavy cloak into place. Vash was staring up at the sky in the manner he was accustomed when burdened.

"Some secrets belong to the people who carry them." She murmured before he could say anything.

He closed his eyes and smiled slightly, then put his hands in his pockets.

"I asked." He said quietly. "They did not see anyone of Teres' description. Though the First Leader said he might have been in the car that waited outside the settlement while the Plant who wrecked this place walked in to cause this devastation."

Vash fell silent then walked off. Meryl felt her heart wobble; he had done this to track Teres? He wanted to help Fifth Moon with their investigations. She did not know how to express her gratitude, but she had to say something.

"Ah, I was wondering, how many settlements of people are reliant on the sandworms instead of plants?" She said as she skipped along beside him. "There must be thousands. And why don't we know much about them? I mean the only reason I know anything about worms is because they kidnapped me..." She trailed off realising exactly what awful memory that event coincided with for Vash. Great, she had put her foot in it. "Sorry."

Vash gave a single nod.

"All those people. All secret." She tried to drag the topic away from that. "I thought I knew this world, but then I met you and, and... and, well, wow. The truth is stranger than the stories we invented for ourselves."

She watched as Vash gazed out at the road ahead of them with a slight smile on his face. His eyes were dark with pain. She wished she could somehow ease it. She reached out and grabbed his hand, he twitched away, but she grabbed his sleeve this time.

"Vash you have salve smeared on here and eew, is that blood?"

He looked down at his arm and grimaced.

"Hah, there you are!" Abe called and then raised an eyebrow. "Is this why you never came back?"

Meryl jerked her hand away from Vash and he stepped back sharply.

"Well, enough canoodling for now, we'd appreciate some help with grave digging!"

Meryl felt her whole face flush and she stormed across to Abe and grabbed his arm.

"We were _not_ doing anything!" She growled at him. "Where are you burying people?"

"There is a grave yard to the east." Abe gave her an apologetic grimace. "Sorry, did I interrupt something..."

"You didn't interrupt anything!" Meryl snapped. "East, you say? Then this way." She dragged Abe off before he could notice the state of Vash's duster or worse, feel the aura of pain around him.

By the time Vash joined them at the graveyard, he had a lighter yet still grim expression. He had no trace of blood and salve except for several dust smears on his sleeve. He stripped his duster off and lent his strength to digging graves with gusto. Meryl sidled up to him.

"Don't the people want to bury their own dead?" She asked in a hushed tone as he stopped to take a break and wipe the sweat out of his eyes.

Vash shaded his face to look up at her from where he stood in the hole.

"They are watching us. We agreed to this. Let us keep our part of the bargain."

"Our part? We're doing all the work!" She protested. "What is their part?"

Vash gave her an odd not quite smile.

"We're still alive, aren't we?"

Meryl went back to filling graves alongside Milly. She was no good at digging. It was a better job than Calor and Chronica had, loading bodies and driving them out to the graveyard. They set about unloading the wrapped bodies as Calor climbed out of the car with a slight shudder. She did what she must, but was clearly very uncomfortable.

"Look at him." She murmured with a slight frown.

Meryl followed her gaze to find her watching Vash dig alongside Abe and Livio. Sweat dripped off him in the afternoon sun and he did not break his rhythm once he started on a grave. She admired the way the sun caught on his rippling muscles, this was not something she wanted to share with Calor at all! Livio and Abe at least had the decency to keep their shirts on!

"I'd heard he had it bad." Calor interrupted her thoughts. "But ugh, he's not so pretty as his face would lead you to believe, is he?"

Meryl clenched her fist and growled at her in a furious undertone.

"Every one of those scars he earned protecting other people! Don't you _ever_ say that about him again!"

Calor gazed curiously at her.

"Er, what _were_ you and Vash doing all morning?"

Meryl glared heatedly at her, hating the way her cheeks flamed.

"None of your business!" She hissed and marched off to toss sand into the grave Livio and Abe had just filled. For once, she was glad of the assumption. For all Vash's gentle hints, there was a real threat of danger with the Sandworms. She did not see the speculative smile that followed her.

.

They drove out of the village as the first sun sank towards the horizon. Chronica anxiously staring ahead as they took the east road out of the village and drove in a wide loop that circled back around as if to rejoin the road they had tried to follow. They finally encountered car tracks but these disappointingly then stopped in the middle of nowhere.

Livio clambered out and tested the sand and walked back.

"It's not quicksand." He said and stood looking around. But the trail ended there and there was no sign of the other car.

"We're too near the ship." Abe worried, scowling at the rolling desert which was all they could see. "They'll come after us at night."

"Let's drive to the north east." Calor suggested. "We can head over to those dunes by that mesa. But we just need to avoid the ship."

"How do we do that if we can't see it?" Meryl asked sardonically.

"We guess." Calor smiled.

Driving far enough from the trigger perimeter of the ship took several near misses. They only set off the perimeter alert once, and Livio shot down the missile. Chronica drove with a concentrated frown, as if she were mapping out the ship in her mind. They made it to an outcrop of rock near the mesa, but the ground became too uneven for them to drive closer. Chronica came to a halt and killed the engine. They were still in the plane in front of the ship.

"We can't stay here." Abe pointed out. "They will snipe body heat."

"Mora, you can get out and carry the car over the rocks!" Chronica snapped at him. "We stay here."

"We're exhausted." Abe argued. "We're on water rations of two cups a day. We have no food except for Milly's puddings and if we keep driving this car is going to die on us. How do you propose to get past the shield, Chronica? Even if Calor and I were fully able plants, we'd not be able to break that sort of barrier – it withstood Tall Hammer, remember. We need to go further and think out a strategy."

Chronica's glare frosted over into a cold fury and she turned away.

"We're all worried." Livio murmured, leaning over the chair to look at her. "But we've got to be alive to get the kids out. At least we know where they are."

"Maybe!" Chronica spat. "What if they are not?"

"It's the best lead we've had yet! And we saw Johnston near here."

Chronica sat for a long moment in silence then hunched her shoulders and started the car again. She looped back, and took a wide circle around the Mesa. Her route took the car off the faint road to follow the sand through the dunes. They reached the shallow valley between the edge of the Mesa and the high sand dunes that hid the ship just as the first sun hit the horizon.

"Satisfied, Mora?" She snapped at Abe.

He gave a tired nod.

Chronica parked the car by the cliff wall.

"We'll have to set a watch." He pointed out as they clambered wearily out of the car.

"That'll be Vash and I on first watch!" Livio volunteered.

"Wha?" Vash found himself grabbed by Livio and followed him yelping in pain and trying not to fall on his face.

.

"You have an entire bottle of whiskey?" Vash declared happily as they staked out their position on the tall sand dune they had just climbed.

"Oh yes." Livio grinned as he opened it and handed Vash a glass.

Livio leaned back against the rock and tilted his whiskey glass so it caught the last rays of the sun. He glanced at his drinking partner. From their vantage point in the lee of the rock strewn dune they could see the camp, the position of the invisible ship and the ruined village. It was a good spot. He had called Vash away with him because there was this look in his eyes. Livio could not quite explain it, but he felt he understood it. There was also a general consensus that something momentous had happened that afternoon. However, as disgruntled as they both looked, it was probably not what Calor so delightfully had invented. Perhaps a few drinks and well timed words would coax it out of him. Also, he did not want to be around Chronica as grouchy as she was now.


	39. Chapter 39

_**Chapter 39**_

Vash was slouched back against the rock, his attention taken by the ladies who were setting up camp. Personally, Livio felt that all that was needed was a blanket to sleep in and a quick check to see if no scorpions or snakes shared the bed space. But ladies, he had learned, liked to make things more homely. It paid to let them, for one, the food was better than cold beans from a tin. He twisted his face wistfully at the thought; beans would certainly be an improvement on pudding. Abe had made the mistake of not escaping quickly enough and he was busy digging a pit for the fire.

He watched as Vash tracked Meryl's movements across the campsite. Time, Livio figured, to go for broke.

"So, when are you going to ask her?"

"Ask who?" Vash gave him a wide-eyed stare of innocent confusion.

Livio smiled and turned away, Calor had been wrong then. He sighed. The man was an idiot. He did not know time was fleeting, and that he needed to grab what was good when he could. Ah, but he had only learned that after Chronica had cornered him, and he had had to reflect on how much time he had left.

Vash drew his knees up and rested his long arms on them, flexing his left hand as if testing the movement.

"How do you live with the selfishness of it all?"

Livio almost dropped his glass in astonishment. What? Had Calor not been wrong? Livio tilted his glass in the light making the whiskey glow like molten gold.

"If I were to simply take what I wanted, that would be too selfish." Vash continued. "She has such an open future ahead of her, how can I even consider asking her to walk beside me with what I have done?"

Livio sipped at the liquid gold, feeling it burn down his throat.

"So that open future is only hers, not yours?"

Vash slouched back and folded his arms over his stomach. Oh, that brooding face was not a good sign. He picked up the bottle and held it out expectantly. Vash raised his glass for a refill without coming out of the slouch. Where had the man lost his fire? He should have shrugged him off with silly banter by now. Maybe topping up his whiskey was not the best idea. Well, this could not get any worse, he may as well lay his cards on the table.

"Scared?" Livio asked with a slight laugh. "Having a woman around gives you all sorts of extra things to worry about. And it's not only stupid things like if she's in a bad mood or not. It's the keeping her around, making her happy, and not putting your foot in it every time you open your mouth. It's tough, but let me tell you, the nights are oh so worth it."

"Pleasure?" Vash said bleakly. "But, how can I? It's so selfish."

Livio laughed.

"Love is selfish and jealous, and man, that is why it is so beautiful. Some selfishness is good and some jealousy is righteous. You just got to get the balance right. Your tendency to is toward altruistic, unconditional love, and unlike us lesser mortals, you have had the strength to sustain it. But, you're nothing like God, and were not made to carry God's burden. What you are feeling is perfectly natural, you're allowed to treasure one diamond among the jewels of the world."

Vash tilted his head and gazed at him, his eyes hopelessly confused.

Livio took a sip, eyeing the man until he did the same.

"For all your talk of love and peace, you only know the outer coatings, and the pain they bring. True love will live vibrantly and give everything for another, and true peace calms the soul so that it stands like still water without a breath of wind on it. You're getting there, but you have a long way to go if all you are going to do is to think about it. Go and live it!"

Vash sat forward again, perking up slightly.

"Live it?" He mused. "How, without being selfish and jealous and, and condemning her?"

Livio ignored the self-depreciating statement.

"Not like that. She'll smack you if you make it sound you have been thinking about it. I've seen her around you. Just make a silly pass at her and see what happens. You might be pleasantly surprised."

"Wha?" Vash turned to Livio. "I should wing it?"

"Yep. For such an old soul, you sure are a novice in love."

Vash fidgeted.

"No one ever got this close before." He mumbled and took a swig that finished his glass and held it out for a refill. Livio topped it up.

"Ah. So this is the real deal? Scary, isn't it?"

He watched as the man downed the shot in one gulp.

"Dutch courage might help, if that's what you're planning."

"I'm winging it." He grouched and got to his feet.

Livio scythed out a foot and tripped him.

"Ow! Ow! Ow!" He picked himself out of the sand. "What was that for?"

"You're not yourself. Sit back down."

"But…"

"You're so scared you're forcing yourself." Livio said easily. "Calm down. You don't have to say anything now. She knows. She's been waiting for years. Find yourself again, and then ask her. Also, she's tired and hasn't eaten, might be a bit grumpy about now."

Vash sank down with a sigh and held out his glass again. Livio topped it up.

"How do you know so much about all this?"

Livio laughed.

"See that woman over there?" He pointed to Chronica, who glanced at them as soon as he angled the bottle in her direction. "She turned me inside out and upside down, and when I don't get it right drags me behind her until it is. It took me three months to work up the courage to ask her to marry me. I learned a lot."

"You're married?" Vash said incredulously.

Livio raised an eyebrow.

"Yes. It's one of the many good things that the Eye of Michael taught. If you respect the lady that much, marry her…" He paused, seeing the expression on Vash's face. "The cult twisted it a hell of a lot, but it was based on some sound teachings. I put some heavy study in after Nicholas died. I wanted to see why he wanted to be a priest, why he fought for me." He sighed. "I don't get your confusion at it all, though. You live it, you show others you live it, you in fact would die for it. But inside, I don't think you believe that the ideals you would die for, apply to you."

"It always comes down to that." Vash breathed, his eyes haunted as they found Meryl again. "I tried. I did." He opened his prosthetic hand, and absently stared at it, if only Knives had sliced off both. "But I can't seem to forgive myself."

"What?" Livio looked up from admiring his tot of whiskey. "You can't do that."

"I can't?" Vash felt confusion sluice through him.

Livio had the gall to laugh incredulously.

"You can't forgive yourself." He declared, then casually punched Vash so hard that his whiskey spilled in the sand.

"Ow!" Vash picked himself up out of the sand, and held up his sand filled glass in askance.

"Now, who needs to give forgiveness?" Livio asked, then put a hand to his chest and rolled his eyes skyward. "Oh, no matter, I forgive myself."

He sipped at his whiskey.

Vash glared at him indignantly.

"It is the greatest arrogance in the world to forgive ones self. In fact it is heaping insult onto injury."

Vash gaped at him, in bewildered astonishment. His glass was still full of sand. He tried to scoop it out with a finger. It was better than looking at Livio's too keen stare.

"You know what I have done." He breathed with hollow horror.

"Went all crazy with the plant powers." Livio nodded and took a swig from the bottle, as if sips from his glass were not enough for such thoughts.

"I killed…" Vash closed his eyes.

He felt breath on his cheek and flinched back as Livio stuck his face so close that his nose nearly touched his own.

"Yes, you did. Unintentionally, but the crime still is at your hands."

Vash felt sickened to the stomach at the reminder. He leaned back further trying to avoid Livio's eyes. Then, suddenly Livio sat back and took the glass from him. He rinsed it out with water from his canteen, poured another shot of whiskey and returned it to him.

"Vash, I'm sorry. Forgive me for punching you?"

Vash eyed him levelly. He knew what was going on.

"Okay. So, you say I can't forgive myself." Vash nursed the whiskey glass; he gave a self depreciating laugh. "I know I can't, I have tried and it just doesn't take."

"Mmh." Livio mumbled as he sipped his whiskey.

"But it's my action. Who do I ask for forgiveness?"

"Who did you wrong?" Livio asked.

"The people of July? But I've been trying to do what I can to help them since…"

"And the dead?" Livio asked.

"What do you mean?" Vash asked.

"You have worked recompense to the living, but what of the dead?"

"Er-" Vash gave him a stare of despair. "I can't do anything for the dead. Just the living. That's why I can never earn forgiveness. Those who need to forgive me can't."

"What about the one who gave the lives to those people?"

"Who do you mean? Like God?" Vash frowned.

"Yep." Livio nodded. "The good book calls for a reckoning and God's going to be doing it. I bet He would be mighty interested to know how you ended a bunch of lives he put here, and what you intend to do about it. In fact they are probably sitting in the afterlife bitching about their sudden removal from life."

"Wha-?" Vash panicked, he had never thought of it that way. "What? I ask _God_ for forgiveness? Isn't that worse than forgiving myself?"

"Not if you are honestly sorry for what you have done and say some sincere apologies."

Vash stared at him aghast.

"I, I don't deserve it."

"True." Livio said. "None of us does."

Vash turned his glass in his fingers as he waded through his bewilderment. Then how- he then recalled the days after his memory had returned. How how he had remembered July in all it's terrifying horror, how he had frightened Meryl by almost losing control. How, tormented by despair, he had ended up in a church just at the right time to hear the preacher's explanation. He had said much the same as Livio, about truly repenting of sins.

"…the Son of Man bore the burden of our sins before our Father God…" He repeated the preacher's words to himself, as horrified as he had been that time in the church. He felt sick at the idea that someone else had to take up the pain and regret he now carried.

"Grace." Livio murmured and patted him on the shoulder. "Were it not for grace, none of us would be alive."

"Oh man." He breathed. "Why is it so hard?"

"Only because you're doing it all alone." Livio smiled as he got to his feet. Chronica hadn't looked away and he did not want her coming over here to confuse Vash any more than he was. "You're allowed to be selfish, you're allowed to be loved, and you're allowed to ask for help." He paused and then decided to leave the man the bottle; he twisted it into the sand so it stood upright. "And I think the root of your troubles is that you have no self worth." He finished his drink. "We only piss out the whiskey in the end, but damn, it is good going in. You're like a barrel of good bourbon. You've been storing all that good inside you, at least drink of it yourself, before the cask breaks and spills without knowing what magic it is. You can't continue to believe that all you're full of is piss."

"That's disgusting."

"So is what you're doing to yourself. Glad that something has started to resonate."

* * *

Livio leaped down the dune and gave Chronica a broad grin as he sauntered past her.

(What are you running away from?)

Livio winced. He had _tried_ to explain to Chronica that telepathy made his brains rattle, but she still forgot from time to time. He looped back to where she stood and gathered her in his arms. She remained tense for a few moments then relaxed slightly. He had discovered quite early on that she responded remarkably well to hugs. To his delight she snuggled up to him and her glare lessened, only to reveal the very real fear they both felt. He tightened his hug.

"We'll find a way in." He murmured.

"Yes." She said as if that were an absolute fact. Her pale eyes sought out his. "But why did you run away from Vash like that? You didn't give him that piece of old irritation you've been chewing on the last few weeks did you?"

Livio tried to shift elegantly out of the embrace and grin charmingly. She gave him an unimpressed stare. Realizing he was in for what could be a very embarrassing lecture in front of an audience, he managed to tuck Chronica under his arm and lead her off to the far side of the car.

"You did!" Chronica scolded. He glanced back at Meryl to gauge hearing distance. The small woman was cooking over the small gas stove on the far side of the camp. Livio winced. Yuck. Warm pudding. Chronica poked him in the chest to recall his attention.

"Hey, he's my friend." Livio protested. "Sometimes a friend has to point out stuff to another when they see they're in trouble. I told him about the advantages of being married!"

Chronica's expression, if anything, became colder.

"I didn't give any details…" Livio added trying to think why she was so cross.

Chronica gave him a long look then an odd little smile appeared at the corner of her mouth and she slipped out of his arms. Livio glanced around but Vash was still on the dune keeping watch and the others were setting up camp or cooking. He knew that look. He grinned broadly back at her, his mind rapidly going over the geography of the area. There had to be some place they could be alone.

He sauntered after her and she slipped ahead of him again. He caught her as she darted behind a tall rocky buttress that gave them a modicum of concealment from the camp. After all the grumpiness of the last two weeks, he was very relieved to discover her willing and eager for a cuddle.

"I can't believe you had to tell him." Chronica laughed and dodged his kiss so it landed on her cheek.

Livio groaned in frustration. It was becoming rather more than a cuddle, which he was very happy about, and now she wanted to talk. About Vash.

"As I recall, you had to make it plain to me." He mumbled, and she smiled, her clear eyes sparkling.

"Me? Wasn't it you who moved himself into my room when he couldn't pay the rent at the hotel and had to hide on top of the wardrobe in a bed sheet while I talked Panse out of the room?"

Livio laughed.

"It could have been like that."

"Livio."

"Mmh?" He went back to kissing, that sounded all too serious a tone and he didn't feel like another fight, not after he'd just told Vash a number of things he could possibly be made to regret.

"I'm pregnant."

"Gah?" He straightened and stared at her oddly vulnerable little smile. "Really?"

"Yes, you idiot. I'm tired of trying to act normal; I've been feeling as sick as a dog for the past three weeks."

"That's good."

"What?"

"The pregnant thing I mean." He said, dazed. He frowned sharply at her as dread flooded his body. He stood to his full height as he scanned their surroundings. "But we're in danger out here."

"Yes we are." She kissed his cheek and nuzzled up to him. Livio could not understand her. Why was she interested in such intimacy now when all he could think of was destroying anything that might harm her?

"We were in danger when I carried Jasmine and Douglas, it'll be fine." She drew him back into her embrace and kissed him.

Livio dazedly tried to concentrate. It had been too many days of so much worry and no time for comfort. He took one glance back at the desert behind him. Vash was on lookout duty. If whatever danger was coming got past him, it would be big and would need all of them. Vash could be relied upon to make enough noise to gather the troops. He smiled and left the protection duties to his friend.

* * *

Meryl tried the warm pudding. It was only mildly awful. Everyone else had decided to have theirs cold. She managed half and put it to one side. Milly had set out enough for everyone, and Livio's and Chronica's were still untouched. She figured that they had wandered off to find a private patch of sand somewhere. Abe had grimaced in the direction they had gone. He had walked out to take Vash his dinner of pudding then had stayed to join Vash on his watch. Calor had set up a small shuttered lamp and checked the car over. She dug the tools out and she and Milly set about rigging up what reinforcement they could to hold the back part of the car together. Meryl admired such talents in others, she could operate and clean guns, but car mechanics was beyond her. She looked at her small hand and clenched it. Why did it seem that everyone else in the world was bigger and stronger than her? What difference could she make? She took a deep breath and shrugged her cloak over her. It was not the first time she had slept with the uncomfortable derringers as her mattress and blanket, yet each time she did, she fervently hoped it would be her last.

"Wake me for my watch!" She called to Milly.

She pushed a derringer out of the way so she could attempt at comfort. The words 'it might be small but its power is sufficient,' echoed in her mind. Her uncle had said that so many years ago when she had been an even smaller teenager.

"Sufficient." She muttered at the starry sky she could see outside the flap of her cloak. "What is the point of sufficient if everyone else has abundance?" She burrowed her head down half crying, half laughing at herself. She knew what her uncle had meant. He was right. She also knew that her current bundle of moods was nothing to do with her strength and jealousy at what others could do. No, it was all to do with the way Vash had twitched away from her when she had tried to take his hand to comfort him. She had instantly turned it into concern for his outer appearance. She balled her fists and gritted her teeth in fury. Why, whenever she approached that pain he carried, did he push her away? She breathed out a furious breath. He had crossed the line with that. She was going to corner him one of these days and let him have it. A sudden flashback of Vash and Wolfwood nosily arguing with each other over their different moralities came to mind and she groaned. What would be the point? He would only stubbornly dig his heels in further. There had to be some other way. She shifted the cloak until she could see Abe and Vash hunched on the dune together. She would show that broom headed idiot that she was at least as stubborn as he!

.

"Meryl?"

She opened her eyes groggily to find Calor crouching beside her.

"It's one in the morning. It's our watch."

Meryl rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and yawned. Ow. Her neck was all cramped from the bad sleeping position. She felt like she had not moved all night. She stood and stretched. Between her and the car, the others had settled themselves. Livio slept on his back in the jeep, his legs sticking out of the car. Abe slept tucked under the rug he had taken from the back seat of the jeep. Milly lay beside the fire. Vash was missing. Had he watched all night? Meryl shook out the sand from her cape and tied it on.

They trudged up the dune and sat down beside Chronica. Meryl looked around, but saw no sign of Vash.

"Where's Vash?" She asked as Chronica got to her feet and stretched.

"How would I know?" Chronica asked. "I haven't seen him since I relieved him at ten."

Meryl stared out at the night, worried.

"What's wrong?" Calor rubbed her hands together in the cold night air.

"He likes to do things by himself." Meryl said faintly.

They all looked out at the invisible ship.

"He wouldn't." Chronica breathed, furious.

"I wouldn't put it past him." Meryl sighed and sat down.

"Don't you want to help him?" Calor asked, surprised.

"Trust me." Meryl assured them. "We'll know if he needs help."

They watched Chronica return to the camp. Meryl made sure that the woman had settled in the front seat of the car before crawling around Calor and standing up behind the rock where she could not be seen from the camp.

"Meryl?" Calor whispered as she took a step down the far side of the dune.

"I'm not going far, I just want to see if I can see his prints in the sand."

"They go that way." Calor pointed down the side of the dune that went towards the camp.

Sure enough there was a series of large prints with a good length of stride between them.

"I'll be back now!"

"Of course!" Calor said with a delighted grin.

"It's nothing like that!" Meryl hissed and hurried down the dune.

* * *

Vash held out his hand in the moonlight and smiled. He could feel it, even if he could not see it. The force shield around the ship created a strange static that made his hand tingle. He walked widdershins around the ship, trailing his hand along the strange sensation. With his right he could feel nothing, but the prosthetic gave off a very odd sensation. It made him feel like he wanted to scratch at an itch that wasn't an itch. What made him curious was that he had not activated the perimeter defense. After an hour's walk he finally reached his destination. He found his bag in the debris strewn across the dunes along the road. It had chunks blasted out of it, but it was salvageable. He emptied it of all his extra clothing and filled it with the food and ammunition he could find. There was not much as most of it had burned in the pyre on the road, it still stank of burned cloth and gas. What he had salvaged would be enough for another two days if they were careful. He found a coil of Livio's bullets that had not exploded and looped them over his shoulder, then he found what he had been hoping to find all along. A canteen full of water. He hiked the large two dallon container onto his shoulder.

He trooped back towards the camp and was startled to see a small figure standing in his path. He smiled and waved, it was all too predictable what would happen next. She always had some sort of nagging lecture for situations like this.

"Meryl!" He greeted her enthusiastically to head off her words. "I found some water." In another circumstance he would ask her to help him carry something, but both the large canteen and his bag were too heavy for her. "Let's go back to camp."

He heard her fall into step behind him.

"Vash?"

He felt himself tense at how oddly vulnerable her tone was.

"Should I let the plants run Fifth Moon and go home when this is all done?"

Oh man. That sort of question had barbs all over it. Why could she never be straight about things?

"It's your company. What would Milly do without you there?"

It was rather devious to include Milly but calling out older and stronger loyalties was the best he could do. How did Livio deal with all the loopy ways of thinking?

"You're right, I suppose." Meryl sighed.

"Don't you want to run Fifth Moon?" He asked, puzzled.

"Yes and no." She replied with a sigh.

"You're doing good work. I know Teres hurt you all, but you're strong. You'll make it better." He paused. "You've never given up on anything before. Why do you want to give this up?"

There was such a long silence behind him that he glanced back. He found he had left Meryl in the sand almost a ten yarz away. She hastily scrubbed at her eyes.

"Meryl?"

He was shocked at the way she suddenly marched up to him and then past him.

"Meryl?" He called after her.

"You…you…" Her words failed her in her fury. She turned away and almost ran back along the trail.

Vash hefted the water on his shoulder and continued to walk.

"Oh man." He breathed after her with a faint smile. He loved the way she could radiate so much energy from such a tiny form. If he had not been carrying such important things he would have ditched them and run after her, Dutch courage or no. There was something about her persistence, even as confused as she seemed to be, that caught at his heart. He really wanted to kiss her then, to taste some of the fiery passion that was her soul. He breathed out a regretful sigh.

"Vash the Stampede, what are you _thinking_?" He shook his head and tried to work out how they were going to crack the ship open before Chronica decided it was a good idea to use that angel cannon of hers.

* * *

Meryl sat down beside Calor with a huff of frustration.

"Didn't go well?" Calor asked easily.

"I don't want to talk about it." Meryl clenched her fists. How dare he? How dare he mention Milly to get out of answering a question? She kicked the sand down the dune in little puffs as her heels dug into the dune. All he had to do was... ah. Yes. That was it. She _had_ to remember that he was _not_ interested, as much as she might be. Of course he acted like that, he hadn't a clue what she felt. And Milly was too true a friend to hint anything in front of him. She felt her heart clench as she remembered Milly's clear way of focussing. She would only be worried about the twins. What had she been thinking chasing Vash like that when those poor children faced such an uncertain fate?

She glared at the sand in front of her. The ship was still invisible and looked like more sand dunes.

"You know, I think I prefer sand dunes to brush country." Calor said interrupting her thoughts.

"Huh?" Meryl glanced at her.

"I've done my share of time on watch, and it is far easier keeping an eye on dunes than it is on trees and bushes that move in the wind. Much easier."

"What's it like?" Meryl asked wistfully. She had seen pictures at school of old earth before the planet went into decline. Wide green open spaces and bodies of water that covered more than half the planet.

"Shady." Calor said succinctly. "And full of places to snipe from. The last world we were on I was on assignment with Teres. We got to know each other there. It was brush country, low bushes with the occasional tree here and there. You could lie down in the bush and no one would be able to see you. The magnetism in the rocks nearby messed up our scanners, so we had to rely on heat signatures. Let's say we were always a well fed squadron."

"How many worlds have you been to?" Meryl asked.

"I've seen at least twelve, but my parent plant was installed in a stellar drive, so that made me automatically a member of the crew. I grew up in space and ran with the marines who manned her. When I was old enough they assigned me to other postings. Teres got this posting and I nagged until they let me on. It was supposed to be a short recon mission, eight months maximum." She trailed off. "Can't say I'm happy with how things turned out, but there is one thing I shall forever be grateful to Knives for. I am not married to that treacherous traitor Teres. We were going to get married when we returned from duty."

"I'm sorry." Meryl murmured.

"Why?" Calor asked. "No point us both being sad."

Meryl looked away when she caught the depth of pain in her eyes.

"He would call me a traitor, turning my back on the Fleet. But I will not condone their behaviour, nor will I condone anyone who aids them in that behaviour. Killing plants, genetic manipulation of humans, trafficking in body parts of plants and humans and worms. If they had done this crap back on Earth they would have been in jail for longer than even the lifespan of even a plant."

"That's not a Terran invention." Meryl said sadly. "No Man's Land had it all in operation before you came."

"True. However, if they found such activities, it is their sworn duty to shut them down. Or at least aid the populace to see how wrong it all is." She stated. "What was it like before the war? All we saw was abandoned towns and refugees when we arrived."

"Not much has changed, except we probably lost an eighth of the population." Meryl sighed. "It's a tenuous existence out here. This sort of thing was my life." She gestured to the group behind her. "Milly and I were disaster investigators for Bernadelli Insurance."

"So it was this bad before the war?"

"Yeah. Pretty lawless." Meryl nodded.

"Wow." Calor murmured.

They watched as the sand around the ship suddenly shimmered.

"Er…" Calor breathed and pointed soundlessly at the ground.

"I saw it." Meryl said, suddenly feeling her skin prick with fright. "Sandworm! Warn the others!"

She drew her derringers as Calor sprinted down the dune, leaping in great bounds to sink slightly into the sand as she landed each stride.

Meryl was joined by the others as a single crack of a gunshot went off. For a moment the ships shield shimmered silver and then a plume of sand was blasted into the air, to settle on top of the ships shield, rendering any invisibility shielding useless. They could now see the shield if not the ship. Another crack sounded and the shield shimmered again.

"Damn, that's clever." Abe breathed. "They're using the moonlight to detect the interference of the shield when fired on, and the automatic defenses won't detect anything below the sand."

Another plume of sand went up and scattered across the already revealed shielding.

Then there was silence. It was too quiet, not even the wind blew to interrupt the silliness of the night. They watched from the dune top.

"I don't like this." Chronica muttered. "The sandworms have all retreated almost beyond the village.

"They're going to blow the ship." Abe breathed. "Get behind the dune, now!"

.

They made it several paces down the dune before the bombs went off. It not only threw the ship several yarz into the air but took off the tops of the sand dunes around it. Meryl felt herself hauled at an impossibly fast speed out from under the falling sand. She dazedly clutched at Vash as they sheltered in a huddle in the lee of the mesa. A second explosion rocked the ship and blasted more sand into the air. He had his arms clutched around her and she buried her face in his chest as it stung like being caught in a sand storm. This plume of sand had buried their camp site and most of their hired jeep.

"Stay down." Vash instructed as she tried to squint past him to see what had happened.

A third blast went off, and this one cracked something as the ship was suddenly visible.

Meryl gaped at it in shock. The ship was burning as black plumes of smoke rose from it. At first she was thrilled, Teres would be caught in that. Then she remembered the twins.

"No!" She screamed and ducked out of Vash's grip.

Livio caught her as she sprinted past and she turned around, clawing at his arm and trying to get free.

"Wait!" He grabbed her other arm and twisted her into a head lock as she fought. "There might be another bomb!"

"But your kids are in _there!_ " Meryl protested. "We have to get them out!"

"Do not mistake my caution for inaction!" Livio growled.

Meryl stopped fighting and Livio released her, she scrubbed at her face.

"There." Abe said, pointing as a sandworm advanced on the ship, carrying at least seven people on its head. "Now we can move out."


	40. Chapter 40

_**Chapter 40**_

They hurried through the passages of the ship. The Sandworms had made a mess of the place, gaping holes now showed the starry night skies of the world through layers of space ship hull. Burned and twisted metal sometimes blocked their path, as did the acrid smoke of burning plastics. The few crewmembers they did encounter did not attack them; rather they grouped around the doors to the plant rooms, guarding them. They ignored them and went on.

Ahead of them Livio gave a shout, raised his guns and ran with Abe and Milly hot on his heels. Vash saw the crew raising their blasters and guns.

"Get down!" He threw himself at Meryl and Calor who had just come around the corner, firing as he did so. Vash gritted his teeth as his injured shoulder sent stabbing fire all over his back and neck. He leaped to his feet and looked around. Abe and Livio had disappeared ahead of them, and Chronica was now sprinting back down the passage. Calor picked herself off the floor. Meryl was crouched down, and adjusting the loaded derringers in her cloak.

"We want to go this way." She pointed downwards. "The twins will be there if they have them. Dunno what Chronica thinks she's doing heading for the cargo bay when I know Teres, he'll be up in the cockpit, and prisoners of any importance will be in the ships brig."

They followed Calor downwards; Vash hung back, then slipped away and went after Chronica. There was something about the way she ran away from their original heading that rang alarm bells in his head. It was as he passed the same array of screens for the third time that he realised he was running in circles. He grimaced at them and then had an idea. He went over to the screen and realised that the technology was similar to the small device Chronica had given him. He accessed the search and pulled up a blueprint of the ship. Ah, no wonder he had been running in circles, this deck they were on was a double loop. If he wanted to find Chronica, he would have to descend three levels, and if he wanted to find Livio in the cockpit he could take a parallel passage to the one the crew defended. He decided to chance going after Livio.

* * *

Chronica sprinted into the brig; reloading the pistol she carried. There was something to be said for the weapons they made on No Man's Land, they were hardwearing and efficient. She raised the pistol and fired, disarming one guard and infuriating another. She dove out of the bullet path and caught him with a sharp chop to his shoulder. He went down before he even knew what hit him. She disarmed both of them and had them handcuffed together with their hands behind their backs before they could gather their wits enough to fight her.

"Chronica, what the hell are you doing?" One of them recognised her. She did not know his name though. "I'd heard you'd gone native, but not that you'd left the Fleet!"

"What fleet?" She demanded as she chained them to the heating pipe on the wall. "There is no fleet. None of our ships can fly!"

"But they can!" The guard said and received an elbow in the gut from his partner.

Chronica paused, and stared at them.

"There is a ship that can warp back to Earth? I've seen the state of this one, you don't have enough power to warp, too many of my sister plants were killed in the crash, and the shields were damaged by Tall Hammer."

But they both kept their silence now, both refusing to listen to her.

"There's another ship?"

They did not look at her.

"I don't have time for this!" She snapped at them and stood up, infuriated. Then an idea occurred to her and she smiled a slow mean smile. "I'll hand you over to some people I know who won't mind taking the time to hear what you have to say."

They had given her an idea, so she went across to the prison gates and placed her hand on the consol, her identification codes and title flashed: Chronica of the Namdrife, rank lieutenant. So this was not a completely bad day.

"Open the doors." She murmured coding in her old pass.

The glass doors of the brig opened and she hurried through.

"Hey! What are you doing here?"

Chronica had expected to be challenged far earlier, but she had walked half the length of the brig before guards at the farther end had noticed her.

"Looking for people." She said with a cold smile.

"Hey, look at her hair; is she one of the rogue plants?"

Chronica scowled.

"No. I am Chronica of the Namdrife..."

"Her! She's gone over to the natives!"

"Yeah, there's a reward for you!"

"What?" Chronica snapped as they both raise their blasters. Damn! She turned and sprinted and they went after her. She wondered if they had ever been told it was pointless to chase a plant. She outdistanced them in a matter of seconds and slunk silently around the brig cages, heading to the exit. There would be some sort of serviceable weapons in the store room where the prisoners belongings were kept.

She reached the storeroom and slipped into the semi darkness. After a brief yet unsuccessful hunt through the cage lockers at the back of the room, Chronica went over to the computer. Perhaps they had a weapons vault somewhere. She was almost certain they did. She entered her pass on the computer and called up the information on the ships that had been the Pieces of Earth Fleet. To her disgust, they had every prisoner listed except the twins. She checked the power networks, but there was no heightened power diversion to any containment unit. Furious she called up the weapons hold, she wanted something other than her bazooka that would take out the wall and everyone behind it if she fired it. There was a noise behind her and Chronica almost jumped out of her skin. She had been concentrating so hard on her search she had neglected to inspect the room properly.

"Oh, it's only Chronica!" A very relieved whisper came from behind a table she had ignored on entering the store. Chronica breathed out and scowled at Meryl and Calor as they peered over the top of the table.

"Calor, come look at this!" Chronica waved her over.

"Where's Milly?" Meryl asked.

"Last I saw she was with Abe and Livio." Chronica remarked.

"And your…" She fell silent as Chronica shot her warning a glare.

"I got through half the brig, but I was interrupted." Chronica grimaced.

"Oh, your pass lets you in!" Calor exclaimed and nudged Chronica out of the way, and shut down her search for weapons. "They locked me out when I tried mine earlier!"

"Hey!" Chronica protested.

"I just want to check something." Calor muttered in such a determined tone that Chronica let her.

"We're on the Soldalis." Chronica pointed out. "Why are you looking for the manifest to the Exitalis?"

"It's the ship Ezrah was on." Calor explained. "And I need Ezrah's records."

"Hey, hey! Wait." Chronica reached over as Calor scrolled rapidly through the manifest pages and found what she wanted.

"You can check what you want in a moment, this is important." Calor pushed her hand away and opened Ezrah's records. "There!" She stabbed the screen with her finger at the line that said: Education: Stormvalley University. "Teres went to the same college. I knew they knew each other, I just did not realise it went so far back."

"Hmm." Chronica said and flipped back through the screens.

"Don't be so dismissive." Calor complained. "I have a theory that Teres and Ezrah have been working on this far longer than we imagine."

Chronica raised her eyes from the screen.

"What do you mean? That they planned to destroy our fleet and ground us on this planet?"

"No. No. Nothing like that." Calor said as Chronica searched through the Exitalis manifest and brought up a picture of a man named Umbro. "What I mean is that they knew each other. And that they used that connection to work together, and perhaps subvert each other. I don't know which went bad first."

"I think I do." Chronica said softly.

They crowded closer, the heaviness in her tone made the man whose face appeared on the screen somehow significant.

"Who's he?" Calor asked. "I know it says human, but he's got plant colouring. Must be tough to be a human with that colouring, to be mistaken for a plant."

"He is a plant." Chronica said with a faint fury. "And for some reason he's lied about his nature and his name."

Calor blinked at her.

"How is that possible? They have scanners that can easily distinguish a plant from a human."

"Not if someone paid those looking at the scanners not to say anything."

"He's rich?"

"Oh yes." Chronica murmured. "We have to find the others now!"

"What do you mean?" Meryl exclaimed. "We have to hunt for the twins!"

Chronica flinched and her face grew stony with the pain of the decision.

"No. Not if this man is who I think he is. Let's get moving!"

.

They found the three men and Milly huddled on the upper deck, behind an impromptu barricade. Their arrival interrupted an argument as to how to best proceed to the cockpit.

"Hey! Did you find …?" Livio's eyes searched the corridor behind them as they joined them.

"No!" Meryl grouched. "Chronica had some revelation that could not wait."

"More important than-?" Livio asked as Chronica walked straight past him. "Hey…"

Vash flattened himself against the wall as Chronica advanced. She slammed her hand on the wall beside his head so he could not continue his escape sidle. She pinned him there with cold fury in her gaze.

"Your brother has brought this whole entire mess upon his head! Everything that has happened is his fault. If they'd been stronger or you hadn't interfered he'd be dead. And I almost wish they had succeeded!" For a moment, she looked as though she wanted to spit in his face, but she mastered herself. She turned with a furious huff and marched off.

"W-what?" Vash stared after her, puzzled and hurt. "What did Knives do? I-I mean, aside from the obvious." He glanced questioningly at the others around him. "That reaction is very personal."

"Give her time to calm down. I'll see if I can find out what it is later." Livio muttered. "She'd probably hit me if I tried to talk to her now."

"Hit you?" Meryl said in amusement.

Livio glared at her.

"Being hit by a plant with an ability to warp your mind is nothing to laugh at short stuff."

Meryl scowled at him.

Vash's stomach gave a sudden loud grumble. He grinned sheepishly.

"I'm starving. Anyone pack breakfast?"

"How can you think about eating now?" Meryl exclaimed exasperated.

"Easy, I'm hungry." Vash said.

"What did Chronica mean that she almost wished they had succeeded?" Calor asked, staring after her. She had stopped at the end of the passage and had crouched down to lean against the wall, her arms folded around herself.

Livio set his shoulders.

"I'll go find out."


	41. Chapter 41

_**Chapter 41**_

Vash eyed the Terrans at the end of the passage. There was a cease-fire, most probably because both sides knew they would run short of ammunition if they kept shooting to intimidate rather than injure. Compared to the battles he had been in with No Man's Landers, these people had some battle tactics. That was not an entirely reassuring thought. He was distracted from his morbid musings when Livio returned to the barricade. He crouched down beside where they were huddled, his face drawn with unhappiness.

"That bad?" Meryl whispered, her voice breathy and worried.

Livio sighed.

"Just about. Vash."

He jumped at his name. What did this have to do with him?

"When the Earth Fleet first arrived, Knives tried to add their plants to the fused entity. He caught one of the independent plants, a woman named Domina. Only she was not strong enough to overcome the fusion into the base psyche and lost herself. She emerged brain damaged once the fused entity was broken."

Vash gaped at him, his stomach turning in sick horror.

"Wha - what? But the plants, they were fine." He began with pleading in his voice.

Chronica returned as he was speaking and slapped him on the side of the head.

"Ow! Ow. Ow? What was that for?" Vash rubbed his head and glanced at his fingers then rubbed his head again, puzzled. His head hurt, but the physical pain was not there. He suddenly had a vast respect for Livio, having to deal with that.

"I don't know how you didn't die doing what you did!" Chronica sat down beside him and he edged away. He could feel the rage radiating off her, and knew that what he felt was nothing on what she would unleash on Knives. "By rights you should have lost your mind too, trying to merge with the communal psyche like that. No, Domina was gone before you did anything. And you did us a favour by breaking the fused entity." She sounded exhausted, then her eyes flashed as they bored into Vash's. "Your brother on the other hand, I will kill if I ever see him. Domina was my best and closest friend. And Agone, the plant on the Exitalis was her younger brother. I do not know how she got him the commission, but it was his first deep space voyage, and probably to be his last. He was to continue the family business back home."

"Agone?" Abe's head came up and his eyes widened, as Calor's mouth dropped open.

"The Zolfilian's Agone?" Abe breathed incredulously.

Chronica's grim nod made him slouch back against the wall with an expression of sick horror on his face.

"Huh?" Meryl said as Vash and Milly caught her eye, they seemed the only ones not comprehending the significance of it all. He felt the distance between No Man's Land an Earth at that moment.

Chronica noticed this and grimaced.

"Meryl, you must understand we Terran's are just like the people of Gunsmoke, I mean No Man's Land. We only appear peaceful because we have not had the opportunity to show our dark side. However, among us, there is more treachery and trickery than even I can guess at. I know Domina from my youth and that man, Umbro, is her younger brother Agone. I don't know why he named himself Umbro, but he is entered on the system on that name, so he clearly meant to hide from everyone. The fact that he got a commission, and a secret one, means that the great families are at work, not only the Central Earth Government. Which means that the Central Earth Government had something else in mind for this world beyond rescuing a few million people, if that was their true intent at all."

"The great families?" Abe whispered with mounting fear in his eyes. "I thought this was a research and rescue mission, not some political shenanigans!"

"You mean Zolfilian, that Zolfilian?" Calor murmured, her eyes widening as if pleading that that would not be the case.

Chronica nodded grimly.

"Domina was adopted for prestige, though you know what skills she had, they had to let her fly. I assume that is why she sneaked her brother out. She wanted to give him a taste of freedom before they got their claws into him. I think he was to serve as their representative before the Senate."

"Whoo." Abe breathed. "Vash, if I were your brother, I'd hope I was six feet under before they found me. At least we know someone will come looking for us." He paused, staring at Milly then hastily mumbled. "Not that I'm ever going back to Earth. I like this place."

"They would they come looking for us?" Milly asked. "Isn't that good?"

"Not for the reasons they would come now." Calor said grimly.

"What reasons?" Meryl asked, though she felt she already knew.

"Vengeance." Abe mused darkly. "Who knows with the great families? That's just speculation. Agh! This is all so messed up. I'm beginning to wonder why we came here in the first place."

He glanced questioningly at Chronica who shrugged.

"We were on a standard rescue mission and to check if the planet was habitable and worthy of mining." Calor explained. "We ran scans, but the mineral deposits were not worth our effort."

"Not all treasure is from the bowels of the earth." Chronica murmured. "They grow several extraordinary plants here. Livio could tell you about some of the stranger properties."

Livio scowled as everyone glanced at him.

"It's just some odd plants found in the deep desert. They are used to make performance enhancing drugs. It affects the mind and the body."

"Oh." Abe whispered, his eyes going slowly wider. "I wondered why there are so many strange mutations among the people. I thought it was weird radiation leaks, but that didn't make sense, as the alterations were not cancerous."

"I have my suspicions that Earth knows about this." Chronica said. "I think we were just a foray. There will be others, though to risk the latest warp-ships and crew as they did. What is this planet worth?"

There was silence.

"It is worth the weight of hope." Abe said softly. Which was the truth, and no answer at all.

"What hope?" Chronica asked bitterly.

"It makes no sense." Vash said quietly, making them all look at him. He flinched away from Chronica's glare. "I thought we were just fighting a plant hoarding power for a fused entity of sorts. But if Agone wants revenge for Domina, surely he would go after the people of No Man's Land. Why has he devastated the ranks of Terran plants?"

"They told me I was useless, and my power best used elsewhere." Abe said bleakly.

"I have no idea why they drained me, all I know is I was asleep in bed one moment and in fiery pain the next." Calor mused. "Teres rescued me, and he also had black hair." She breathed out. "It was his idea to head for December. He'd seen an article in the paper about Fifth Moon. Damn, I was set up twice." She shuddered and blinked hard. "Sorry Meryl." She breathed huskily.

Meryl had nothing to say, but put a comforting arm around her.

"They stole our power." Chronica mused. "They stole power plants."

"They stole the biological research from the Eye of Micheal." Livio mused. "Not easy that."

"And it seems Teres and Ezrah are working for Agone." Calor said flatly. "Teres isn't brave enough to get into this sort of mess on his own."

They gaped at her incredulously.

"I know him." Calor said grimly. "He doesn't like to be wrong. Having someone over him gives him the excuse to say someone else ordered him. This sort of sneaky devastation he demonstrated as Johnston is just like the coward he is."

"We're missing something." Milly murmured, frowning.

Chronica gave a hiss of frustration and smacked her fist onto the floor.

"It was bad enough chasing Teres and Ezrah, but if Agone has our twins." Her voice shook. "He's smart and devious enough to give Knives a run for his money. I'll bet he engineered this whole thing. Calor, I think we have our answer. You wanted to know who went bad first? I'd say it was Ezrah and he affected Teres."

"Oh..." Calor murmured with gut churning dread.

"I know, it's bad." Chronica sighed.

"No! No. It's worse!" Calor breathed her eyes entreating Chronica to understand the urgency she suddenly felt. "Ezrah and Mutare both worked on the Exitalis."

"We left Mutare at the orphanage!" Chronica gasped, half standing.

A shot rang out.

"Stay down!" Livio grabbed her. "Okay. This is not good. But Mutare had his chance to ransom the orphanage and he didn't." Livio murmured, trying to calm his own panic.

"No he was waiting for the best time." Chronica snapped, almost beside herself.

"Yes, but we have to get the twins first!" Livio said in a peculiar calm monotone.

Chronica made a frustrated sound.

"Fine. Livio, take this." She handed him two grenades.

"Alright!" He grinned grimly.

Chronica gave him a quick peck on the cheek.

"Clear the way so when I come back, I can do my share of kicking Teres until he spills where the Exitalis is. I'm sure the twins are on that ship! Meryl, Milly, let's go find them!"

* * *

Meryl and Milly tried to keep up with Chronica, but the plant moved too swiftly for them. It was as they ran, that Meryl realised that that had probably been Chronica's reason for inviting them. There was a shattering explosion several floors below. By the time she and Milly arrived, they found a pile of fallen people beside the brig entrance, and a hole where the door once was, and no plant. Chronica had used her bazooka. Frantic at how reckless the plant was, they hurried through the prison block, Meryl with her derringers out. It was perhaps fortunate that there were so few plants; they all tended to go to the extremes when upset. They ran past several empty cages in the brig.

There was a thunderous explosion and Meryl ducked as a flash lit up the passage for an instant and the whole floor shook.

"That's plant energy Miss Meryl!" Milly exclaimed in alarm. "Let's get out of here!"

"What? No!" Meryl tried to go on, but Milly was stronger than her.

"We need to get the other plants!" Milly reasoned with stubborn fear.

Meryl grudgingly acknowledged that she would be no good in a plant fight and that idea was better than just running away. But they could not take the exit out, as the group of guards Chronica had knocked unconscious were beginning to come around and were bristling guns and vengeance.

"Up here, Miss Meryl." Milly slung her stun gun over her shoulder and began to climb the service ladder that took them to the pipes that ran the length of the ceiling.

They shinnied up the ladder and held silent as the guards moved deeper into the brig swinging their guns at any sound or movement with hyper alert tension.

"Oh!" Milly whispered, almost too loudly.

The guards swung around, hunting for the source of the noise, but the explosion ahead distracted them. Meryl saw what Milly had seen.

"Oh no." She clutched her hands to her mouth in horror.

* * *

Chronica ran along the passage, setting off the blaster effect of the cannon had the ability to knock unconscious anyone within a twenty-yarz radius. It was better than having to face people. She had heard something, and she desperately hoped she had been right. She sprinted around the corner, and there... There they were. In one of the cages were her children. They were still blond, but were thinner and dirty and seemed to be unconscious. She almost fell to her knees with gratitude and at the same time was sickened at her own carelessness. She had knocked them unconscious. How bad had they had it that a blast set for humans took them out too?

She lowered her cannon and palmed the door panel.

"Access denied."

She swore at the computer and lifted the cannon again. Then she lowered it. No. This would require some thought. This was a plant cage. She could not blast her way into it, as it was made to withstand plant energies.

"Ah. So this is the purpose of this raiding party?"

Chronica spun around, raised the cannon and fired in one motion.

She glared at Ezrah who stood there with a simple riot shield, though one modified to serve against plant energy.

"Admirable, Chronica, but misguided." Ezrah murmured. "You'll never get in there, and if you do, you'll never get out. It is a plant containment unit, stronger than even the orbs that enclose our sisters."

"I know what it is." Chronica spat. "I helped engineer them."

"Doubly misguided then." Ezrah shrugged with a slow smile.

Chronica raised the cannon and then lowered it. No. Not this time. That shield he was holding was tested against such focussed energy. But if she was clever, she could overwhelm it, and the only way to do that was to fight with her own life power. She set the cannon down and raised her hand, swiftly morphing it into a weapon and summoning energy from all around her to supplement her own usage. Ezrah stood for a moment with a picture of exquisite horror on his face before she released a concentrated blast directly at his shield.

* * *

Livio threw the second grenade. The cockpit walls warped and shrapnel rained down on the guards who tried to defend it. Vash had yet again declined the use of a blaster, though he had explained to the man that they were intended to be non-lethal. But Vash just used that black six shooter of his and seemed to be content enough to maim and disable his opponents. Livio skipped across the intervening space and kicked those who dared remain conscious. There. He glanced at Vash, but the man was inspecting the wounds on one of the men. He scowled as an image of Nicholas came to mind.

" _He's too soft on the bad guys, Cry baby Livio, but we live because of that."_

"Huh!" Livio grunted to himself. "You're dead."

"Wha?" Vash glancing up from taping up a man's wounds.

"Just talking to myself." Livio scowled, then marched forward when Abe finally succeeded in getting the door open.

And there stood the very man he so desperately wanted to meet.

"Well, hello Teres." Livio said gleeful malice.

The cockpit was empty of people save the plant who was trying to work something on the computer. He turned around, his hair blond now, and his eyes a piercing blue.

"The orphanage manager." Teres sounded surprised. "You've taken up a more bloody profession since we were last acquainted."

Livio grinned.

"No, just picked up one that I thought I'd be able to leave behind." He said coldly.

Teres backed away as Livio advanced.

"And you've brought some disreputable company; you know those two are crazy plants? Have you seen their hair?"

"One saved me and the other aided me, I'd deal with them over you and your filthy blond hair any day."

Teres backed against the wall.

"No!" Abe shouted and flung himself across the room as Teres laughed. He slammed his hand against the wall and a glass door hissed closed around him as Abe crashed into it. Abe pounded on the glass cracking it as Teres and he dropped out of sight.

"He used the lift!" Abe roared at Livio. "How could you back him against the lift?"

"How was I supposed to know this ship had one?" Livio growled furiously and pounded the controls with his fist. "Help me get it back and we can follow him."

"No." Vash breathed.

"What? Hell yes! That man needs a lesson and I'm gonna give it to him."

"No. No, look here!"

They hurried over and Livio took one look at the screen and turned and sprinted back the way they had come. Abe and Vash took one last look at the battle between Chronica and Ezrah then went after Livio.

Livio noticed they were trailing him and waved frantically at them.

"Find Teres!" He yelled. "I can handle Ezrah, get Teres!"

"Where did the lift go?" Vash asked Abe.

"Cargo level. He probably has vehicles or aircraft down there."

Livio ran on, he could not believe how they could so easily forget their objective.

He ran into the brig in time to find Milly and Meryl fighting guards. Milly had used all her stun gun claws and was using the weapon itself as a bludgeoning tool. Meryl was firing her derringers and it was her distracting the guards that allowed him to take out four in quick succession before Milly took out another two. Meryl mutely pointed onwards towards Chronica as she and Milly rushed past to chase down the guards who had fled. He ran onwards, then heard a scream. He knew that scream, he had heard it once before, when they had captured Chronica and tried to drain her of power as they had done the other plants. He sprinted and raised his guns as he emerged in the passage where they were fighting.

Ezrah had Chronica by the neck and her leg was twisted and clearly broken, and the strange glowing light that was her regeneration ability was dim and intermittent. He felt a terrifying weakness drain him as he realized her hair was completely black. He raised his guns, but too slowly. Ezrah saw him and with a malicious delight in his eyes gave a jerk of his arms and Chronica fell limp. Livio felt the power slam through him, and he recognized it. It was her power; each plant had a different note of power, if one could withstand the sensing of it. It threw Ezrah back against the glass cage. Behind him, Livio dimly caught sight of his twins, unconscious on the floor. He threw himself forward with a deep rising fury.

He raised both guns and emptied them both into Ezrah's corpse. Then marched over and kicked the man until he bled then grabbed the man by his armoured coat and hauled him to his feet.

"Isss that aaaaallll you got?" Ezrah breathed his voice growling and breathy through his broken throat.

Livio felt it then, the immense pressure around his mind, the sudden desire for death and the oblivion it brought. The release from pain, agony and torment. He scowled at Ezrah as the plant regenerated himself before him. He wondered why Ezrah thought he wanted release from these things in that manner. He had lived his whole life with them, and would continue to do so. The overwhelming power of the plant's mind was nothing on the pain he felt and the desperate desire to live. It was not for himself. He would save his children and he would save his wife. And if he died trying, that was not good enough. He _had_ to live. He grinned slowly, watching Ezrah's face fall at the understanding that his power had not overwhelmed his enemy.


	42. Chapter 42

_**Chapter 42**_

Vash sprinted through the cargo hold with Abe on his tail. He released the machine gun in his left arm; he was not letting Teres go now, not after seeing the twins in the containment unit.

"Vash, this way!" Abe yelled, taking a turning he had missed. Vash skidded to a halt, grabbing the wall to catch himself and sprinted back to follow Abe. They arrived at the cargo doors and Abe flung himself back, grabbing Vash as he did so. Shot buried itself into the wall of the passage where their heads had been moments before. An alarm suddenly pulsed, red light flickering over the passage they were in.

"Angel shot." Abe hissed through his teeth. "You _do not_ want to get shot."

"I know." Vash breathed shallowly as the wound on his shoulder sent lightning pain all down his arm.

Vash ducked to the ground and peeked. Shot thundered through the room and splattered the wall.

"Three gunners, two on top of the escape pod they're loading and one approaching."

Vash drew his revolver and with a slow breath crouched down on the ground. He felt his heart slow and could more clearly sense where they were in the room. There. He stuck his gun around the door and fired. A clattering and a heavy thud sounded. Ah, so he had hit the lamp mounting. Vicious swearing erupted among the groans.

"Get me those native cretins!" A voice bellowed.

"Let's get scarce!" Abe stepped back and then froze. At the end of the passage were a crowd of sandworm villagers with yellow eyes. "Vash…" He breathed, as the opposite end of the passage filled with armed crew who had responded to the alarm.

Vash took one glance at them, and Abe made his own decision. He flung himself across the intervening space and yelling, dove at the crew. Some fled, others shot wildly, and some were bowled down by Abe careening into them. The plant disarmed a guard and still yelling, chased them down the passage. Vash frantically waved the sandworm villagers back.

"Leave!" He yelled, but they advanced and some trained their guns on him.

Vash gave up on arguing as the Terran crew inside the cargo room darted out into the passage, firing. He swung his leg and scythed out the feet of two of them. He snatched up their guns and shot out the lights of the cargo bay. If he knew anything of the sandworms, their augmented people could see in the dark. It lasted for three seconds before the escape pod they were trying to launch powered up and lights flooded the area again.

"Vash the Stampede!" Teres called as he leaped down from the loading platform. "How many times do I have to shoot you before you actually die?"

Vash raised his revolver and Teres dove towards a side door. Vash sprinted after him, slamming into him as the door opened. They fell in a heap and Teres kicked at him as he scrambled to his feet again, trying to free his weapon from Vash's grasp.

"Why did you murder those villagers?"

Teres gaped at him.

"You're with these sand grubbers?" He waved at the milieu going on between the sandworm villagers and the ship crew behind them.

"No." Vash stood, his hand still clamped around the gun. "Why did you do it?"

"Why are you calling me to task if you don't know what happened?" Teres released the pistol into Vash's hands and drew another. Vash knocked aside the gun as the man fired then fled down the passage. Vash tore after him, shooting the door controls as Teres scrabbled to open them. He had to dodge back as Teres fired back at him in fury.

"Is this about September?" Vash called as Teres ripped out the wires of the wrecked controls and tried to short the door.

"Ah, so you _do_ know what happened." Teres grunted, there was a fizzing snap and some vicious swearing from Teres.

"No, I stopped them at September." Vash said, and took out a mirror to watch Teres struggle with the door. He had him cornered, so far so good. "Killing is not the answer. What your people are doing to the worms and people and to your own sisters the plants…" He trailed off sickened. "H-how can you?"

"You'd call me to answer to those charges in the middle of battle? What kind of idiot are you?" Teres kicked the door then peered back down the passage suspiciously. He raised his gun and Vash whipped the mirror out of the way as two shots chipped the corner where he had been crouched.

"Y-you are right." Vash said wretchedly. "I am an idiot. I'm an idiot for not seeing what was happening sooner." He kept an eye on Teres, he wanted the plant distracted, but not too panicked. "H-how can you do that?"

"Easy." Teres said dismissively. "It's for the greater good."

"How is murder and torture for the greater good?" Vash asked, horrified.

"Look." Teres drawled. "You're a dust world hick, I know your rhetoric. Meryl sure bored us with it back at Fifth Moon. She loves you, you know, stupid girl."

Vash felt his heart skip and sink at the same time. She did? Yes, he knew that. He knew that almost too well. But to hear someone scoff at that love suddenly infuriated him. Her love was his to confirm or deny, not for others to mock. A horrid realization crept up on him then. It was as though ice clung to his heart. How was he any better than those mockers? He blinked at the wall opposite him in bewilderment as Teres continued patronizingly.

"You can't possibly see where you fit into the grand scheme of things when you haven't a clue as to what they are. I can't be expected to explain it in a few seconds."

There was a click and Vash stuck his head around the corner in time to see Teres shove the door open and dart into the passage beyond. Vash sprinted after him. Teres glanced back and the next thing Vash knew was an incandescent ball of energy heading his way, devouring the passage ahead of him. He threw up his defenses, stunned for a moment to discover he had the power to form an angel arm. He grabbed his right hand and flinched back as the power flickered over him, his natural defenses kicking in even as he tried to override them. He picked himself off the floor to find Teres gone and a wide-eyed crowd of sandworm villagers peering through at the hole the blast had left in the wall of the passage. Vash shook his head and tried to get up, but the world went peculiarly liquid for a moment, as if it was all flowing. He fell against the wall, his head pounding with pain. How had he forgotten that he was facing a _plant_?

"Vash the Stampede was that you?"

He looked blearily at the First Leader who pushed his way to the fore. The world slowly came back into focus again. He stumbled forward and encountered another problem; there was no floor for two levels down. More sandworm villagers were staring upwards at them.

The First Leader barked a few orders and they moved off. Vash rubbed at his temples trying to focus. He had to get after Teres. He climbed through the hole in the wall and took the parallel passage, only this time he had an escort of villagers curious as to what his business might be.

* * *

Livio felt the dread pressing down on his mind falter for a moment. He took his chance and kicked Ezrah in the stomach. But as he touched the plant a blast of energy slammed him against the containment cage. He whipped himself up to his feet, struggling to see out of his right eye. The augmented left eye was still operational and he felt himself sink into darkness. Ah, Razlo, some things he had thought he had settled all those years back. But each time it came to a crisis, he was just not strong enough. Not now, and not then.

He watched as Ezrah staggered back over to him and blocked the punch the man swung. Each blow was wreathed with plant power, it was all Livio could do just to stand.

"It is because you fight by yourself." He murmured to the seething pit of emptiness and power that was Razlo. "You're good, but you're not that good."

" _I was the best. We survived the war because of me_." Razlo roared in the back of his mind.

"Because of Vash." Livio reminded the depths of his broken soul. "Because of Nicholas."

" _To rely on your friends, what weakness! Where are your friends now? You sent them away! They are fighting plants, they're dead!_ "

"They are plants." Livio laughed at the irony.

He blinked at the plant in front of him.

"Hey, Ezrah." He said aloud, his voice hoarse, the regeneration fires were burning around his worst injuries had not reached his head yet. Strange, that.

What was stranger was the manner in which Ezrah was regenerating. Livio wiped the blood out of his right eye and tried to get it to focus. All his left did was present a tactical weapons map of vulnerable places. According to the readouts Ezrah's plant powers were all that was keeping him alive, he should have been drawing more and more power if he were on his way to a last run. Livio blinked at the blurred version of the plant who was swaying on his feet.

"You're growing back organs like I do." He remarked in surprise, then gave a harsh bark of a laugh. "Did they give a plant the enhancement treatment? It barely works on humans, what the hell were you thinking?"

"This was my choice." Ezrah grated and spun out a blade so thin and fine that Livio did not feel it pass through his body until the agony of a collapsed lung almost floored him. "What is the use of a last run when all it does is take you out with your opponents? This way I get to live and wreck vengeance where it is most needed. You and your allies are our prime objectives."

Livio choked, trying to grab more air than he could. What had happened to his regeneration? Was he injured that badly that he needed an enhancement? He shakily grabbed the bottle at his waist and with a practiced twisting movement unplugged the syringe and jabbed it directly into his vein. The fiery effect was immediate and for a split second he doubted his decision. The fire wasn't working like it should. Then he felt the fire engulf the pain. Ah. Ah, ha ha ha ha! Yes. This was what it was like. He had forgotten the edge of battle and the heightened senses that came to him then. He turned and deflected the next blade Ezrah swung at his liver, then at his head. He kicked the astonished plant in the solar plexus before he could recover. He could not let him get up. No. If he wanted to get the twins out, he could not. Ezrah had to die. He felt a sudden cold heady awareness of Nicholas.

"There is a way."

The moment of confusion cost him. He felt the blade enter his stomach and crumpled on the floor as Ezrah pushed himself off the floor, shaking and swaying. The fire engulfed his stomach and he tried to gather his wits. _How could he think through philosophy now? Hadn't Vash betrayed his own words?_ Razlo roared over Nicholas's confused directive to live, but not only survive but live in a way that brought life and strengthened life.

" _You benighted fool_." Razlo growled as he sank into darkness. " _This is why you need me_."

"No." Livio caught the darkness and floated in it, not allowing it to overwhelm him. "I need you, but we do this together, as one. As a whole. How can I begin to fight by myself when I have to fight myself?"

He felt the strange enhancement of the fire blaze through his mind as his body healed. The strength and awareness that was Razlo claimed his mind, but behind it all he was conscious of himself.

Ezrah staggered where he stood, the scans were showing a strange, erratic flickering of his power. Was the man dying, or was the regeneration confusing his plant abilities? Ezrah then turned a slow awful smile on Livio.

"All I was to do was to kill the plants with black hair before they went utterly mad. And, you know what? I've completed my mission."

Livio braced himself for the thin blade the plant fought with. Ezrah struck, but he felt no pain, or reaction to injury. He glanced down in confusion, then realized the blade looped around him and went past him. He spun around, too slowly, too late. For each strike he had received, Ezrah had delivered the same to Chronica. And with the last he had severed her head and crushed her skull.

Everything went black.

* * *

Meryl fell back against Milly as they stumbled into the passage in front of the twins containment area. Ezrah was bloody and barely standing, but his plant defenses were fully operational. Meryl turned away and threw up when he delivered the crushing blow to Chronica. She hastily wiped her mouth then with a rage that was almost icy in calmness and clarity, she raised her derringers and fired. Ezrah scythed the bullets out of the air, catching them and deflecting them with unconscious accuracy. In that instant, Livio changed. He gave a keening howl of rage, despair and agony. The fire around Chronica burned white for a while then eerily began to consume her body, becoming brighter and brighter. Livio moved with the speed she had only seen matched by plants. He slammed into Ezrah. She could not follow the fight with her eyes, then a slow movement caught her eye. In the cell, Teres and several armed guards knelt beside the twins and picked them up and slung them over their shoulders like sacks of potatoes. As Livio's fight continued they retreated out of the cell through a rear door, inaccessible except through the cell itself.

"Meryl!" Milly grabbed her arm and hauled her backwards. The concussion that followed threw them to the ground.

Meryl picked herself up and after patting Milly's face urgently, called her back to consciousness.

"Milly!" She hugged her friend in relief.

"The twins!" Milly exclaimed and sat up, slamming her head into Meryl's. They both fell to the side, groaning. Milly got to her feet and to Meryl's surprise headed the opposite direction.

"This way!"

Meryl glanced back to see what had become of Livio, Ezrah and Chronica, but all that was left was a gaping hole in three levels of the ship.

.

They ran into the sandworm villagers the moment they left the brig. Several large men with semiautomatic guns cornered them.

"Get yer hands up!"

"But we're the good guys!" Meryl snapped at them.

"We're surrendering!" Milly raised her hands and stepped in front of Meryl.

Being treated like prisoners on a ship they had attacked was galling. Meryl's only comfort was that she was chained to Milly and Milly seemed optimistic about the potential outcome of the situation. They were walked off the ship and no amounts of explanations of escaping plants, kidnapped children and wounded friends would bend their captors ears.

.

The first sun had arisen as they tramped across the desert sand to the village. Having her arms shackled and linked by a chain to Milly made walking the soft sand difficult. She kept stumbling into the back of her friend. Her spirits lifted when their group joined another patrol and she saw Abe and Calor similarly chained. It really helped when Abe gave them a wink and mouthed 'pretend we're human' at them.

They were herded into the village square with the other prisoners. There were at least a hundred people who had been crew of the Soldalus seated in the sun with their chained hands on their heads. She, Milly, Calor and Abe were placed among them, and made to sit in the same position. Meryl watched for the new comers. When Livio was dragged through, unconscious, but clearly alive by the guard they set around him, she breathed slightly more easily. Where was Ezrah? Had Chronica managed to re-integrate her body? She had seen plants do stranger things.

However the sandworm villagers, kept bringing out people, though these were the dead. They laid them in neat rows on the one side of the square.

"Miss Meryl." Milly whispered.

"Shh!" Meryl hissed as a guard turned towards them and raised a stick.

They had beaten a number of the crew into agonised submission. The guard eyed them for a while then continued down their row, eyeing the prisoners.

"Where's Mister Vash?"

"Shhh!" Meryl hissed. He was their ticket out of there. She knew he would come for them.

Then she gasped. They villagers now came carrying blankets, and as they set them down, they lifted the cloth enough to reveal the face of the dead they carried. Chronica lay on the nearest her face bloody and her hair black. She heard Milly beside her stop breathing.

" _She was a plant._ " Milly gasped with the last of her breath.

Meryl felt the same panic surge through her veins. Where was Vash?

Milly swayed beside her and Meryl risked turning and nudging her friend with her shackled hands.

"Breathe!" She hissed.

She yelped as a stick slammed across her back.

"No fighting!" The guard who watched them growled.

She bit her lip and tried to blink at the tears. Right, she had had enough of this. She began to plot, there was always a way out, now how would Vash do it?

.

They sat in the sun all afternoon as the dead were brought out. Once cleared, the villages began to use the ships own vehicles to plunder the ship. As the sun set each person was required to stand and dictate their rank and status. Once done they were given bread and water, and taken across the square to use a certain house for ablutions, before being returned to their spot. Meryl was relieved that they reached Abe before her, as she would have told the truth. Abe dully looked at the guard and told them in a strong No Mans' Land accent that he was a reporter from December and named the rest of them as his investigative team. No mention of plants, kidnapped twins, or Vash. As he included Livio in their team, he was assigned the role of nursing the man back to health. Meryl watched Livio open his eyes, but Abe put his hand over them and bent down and hissed something in the man's ear. For a long moment Livio clenched his hands around Abe's arm, then he relaxed. Abe lifted his hand and turned away, shaking, his eyes staring with anguish.

Livio lay gazing up at the skies, tears trickling freely down.

"Chronica." He croaked.

Abe gave a nod then waved a guard over and explained the situation.

"You wish to allow an ill man to defile himself with death?" The guard sounded very confused.

"It is our custom to allow a farewell." Abe said stubbornly. "Let me help my friend to his wife."

The guard consulted with several others, then they called one who seemed to be their commander.

The commander walked over to Abe and Livio.

"We bury her tonight. If that is your wish, to take that task from us, you will assist in all the burials."

"We will." Livio said and shoved himself shakily into a sitting position.

"As will we." Calor added and indicated Meryl and Milly into the group.

"Chain them together. The women will prepare the bodies, and the men can dig the graves."

"What?" Meryl said aghast but Calor slapped her hard on the arm and gave her such a glare that she fell silent.

.

Like all work, Meryl found it had a rhythm to it. The sandworm villagers simply buried the bodies without much ceremony. They stripped the bodies, cleaned up what injuries or mess there was, and folded the body in a rough sheet, which was then tied by one of the sandworm folk. Being chained together as they were, they worked on one body at a time. Milly took to reading the name of each person from their uniform and drawing a cross on their foreheads before they enclosed them in a sheet. Calor would make up an eulogy for each, and Meryl marvelled at her creativity. They did not know these Terrans, but Calor spoke of places from Earth, and other planets out in the territory that the Central Earth Government ruled. She spoke of the various backgrounds that had brought them into space travel. Then of the political intrigue that had brought them to this point of landing on Gunsmoke. Each she concluded with what sounded like a standard eulogy for space sailors.

Meryl said nothing. She could think of nothing to say. She had so many frantic thoughts in her head, the frustration at knowing the twins were alive and in Teres's hands. Her bewilderment at where Vash had gone. Wondering when the adrenaline she felt coursing through her body would drop her into a state of shock. She was starving, dehydrated and could see that Milly was feeling the effects of spending a day in the sun as much as she.

.

It was four in the morning when the last body was delivered to them. Although she had become slightly accustomed to the process, this kicked her in the gut. Milly had fresh tears falling down her face. Livio walked in, cradling Chronica's body against his chest. He silently laid her on the preparation tables. Meryl froze as she felt overwhelmed with sorrow, the grief was raw on his face. Livio stood beside his wife's body, his eyes searching her face. It was an awful aspect, bloody and broken. She felt Calor tug at the chain that linked them as she moved to Livio's side.

"We're going to prepare the body, do you want to watch?"

Livio nodded mutely and reached out a shaking hand to stroke the hair that was not soaked in blood. As they worked, Calor spoke quietly. She spoke of Earth, and the times she had known Chronica. By the time that it came for them to completely cover her face, they were all silent, listening to the bright memories Calor called forth.

"Is there anything you want to add before the eulogy?" She asked Livio.

He reached out and touched her hair again.

"She loved me." He said with a heartbroken wonder. "She carried our child. I bury two today."

When none of them moved, he drew the cloth over her face, then leaned over and kissed her.

"Wait for me, my love. We will see that child in the next life." He whispered.

There was a long moment of silence. Meryl found she could hardly see with tears. Milly was crying into her sleeve and Calor gaped at Livio, unable to speak. She finally managed the eulogy in a horse whisper. The Sandworm woman who had been helping them tie the shrouds around the bodies, stepped up and efficiently did her work. She stepped back and gave Livio a sad bow, before retreating.

Livio then reached down and lifted Chronica. The guard at the door would not let them leave with Livio, but they saw him join Abe in the distance and watched as the two of them buried her.

Meryl stretched, her back ached and her heart felt numb. The sickly sweet smell of death was now saturated in her nose and clung to her skin. The sandworm villagers seemed to understand this, as they took them to a room, and unshackled them to allow them to bathe.

They were taken to a house as the sun rose. Meryl felt ill with how tired her body and heart were. They had not given them much time to mourn Chronica. Physically, not only had she missed a night's sleep but in that time had only had one meal. The adrenaline high of the battle had left and achy exhaustion had kicked in. She staggered as they walked inside. Livio, Abe and Vash were seated on a bench against the wall. Livio sat upright, pale and tired. Abe slouched, haggard and Vash was perched at the edge of the bench, as if he had been yelled at to stay there, looking as beat as she felt. Also in the room stood the man Vash had addressed as First Leader of the Sandworms.

"Here are your friends, save the one that you buried. Your car has been retrieved. I suggest you leave now before the Third Leader hears anything of this." The First leader addressed Vash as if the others did not exist.

Vash pushed himself to his feet.

"Do I have your promise that you will not execute any of the Terran's you have captured?"

"Do I have to repeat myself?" The First Leader growled in fury. "Once given a promise cannot be rescinded."

"Haa!" Vash grinned apologetically at the man's fury. "Thank you."

He turned to them all, gazing at each as if hardly believing he actually saw them.

"Come. Let us go."

He helped Livio to his feet and they walked out of the house. In the alley beside it stood their jeep with a large canteen of water, their luggage and an extra can of fuel strapped to the back.

.

Meryl climbed into the driver's seat before Vash could get the idea. If anything he looked more exhausted than Livio. Milly sat next to her and Abe squished in beside her on the passenger seat. He was the first asleep.

She drove out into the cool dawn light and after half an hour was starkly aware of the silence. She glanced around and saw everyone was asleep. Vash opened one eye when she looked in his direction, then blinked.

"Where were you?" Meryl snapped. They had needed him and he had not been there.

Vash breathed out.

"I had a few issues to sort out with the First Leader."

"About them not executing people?" Meryl asked.

"Yes."

She felt a strange horror curdle in the bottom of her stomach.

"Vash…"

"Mmh?" He asked sleepily.

"Is that why no one knows about the sandworms and the villages associated with them? They kill everyone?"

Vash was silent, she watched him gaze out at the desert as they passed the vast wreck of the Soldalus. The perimeter defence was no longer working.

"Vash?"

He turned to look at her with tears in his eyes.

"Thank you for saving our lives, and theirs."

He smiled slightly, a brief uncertain acknowledgement of his own relief and heartache.

She drove on, watching him in the rear-view mirror as he closed his eyes. His head lolled and he shifted to comfortably rest it on Calor's shoulder. Meryl gave an exasperated humph and dragged her eyes back to the road. Ooh, that man, he was beyond infuriating.

.

She drove for three hours before she found herself nodding at the wheel. She woke Abe to take the wheel and took his seat on Milly's far side. Within a few minutes she was asleep.

She woke as Abe slowed the car and found that everyone else was awake. It was late afternoon and the first sun was setting. Abe pulled the car up beside a heap of rocks, mostly hiding it from the road. They clambered out, stretching and wincing. Calor headed straight for the water and Vash for the food.

"This is as far as we'll go today. We're all exhausted." Abe said in a voice that booked no argument. The way people stared at him, no one was going to give him any argument. "Meryl can sit first watch tonight, then it'll be Calor, Vash and myself. Milly and Livio, you're both injured, you're excused watch duty."

"I'm fine." Livio protested and stretched out his arms to show torn clothing but a sound body.

"You're not." Abe said giving him a piercing stare.

"Are you calling me a liar?" Livio snapped, incredulous that anyone would challenge him.

"Yes." Abe said in a dangerous murmur.

"Livio, he's an empath." Meryl explained feeling more exhausted at the thought of a fight. "He can feel whatever you're feeling."

Livio's face went pale with horror and he swayed where he stood then caught himself with cat like grace. He gaped at Abe.

"Can all plants do that?" He gasped, staring wildly at all of them, his gaze settling nervously on Vash.

"No. Fortunately." Calor said. "But if you're having a crap day, Abe will know about it. He usually has more tact than this though. We're all tired. Let's get some food and sleep, shall we?"

* * *

Livio walked off and stood staring at the last setting sun as they set about opening the food packs the sandworm villagers had given them. Vash sat eating his supper, watching him. He left the others to their pudding, courtesy of Milly's supply, and walked over to his friend.

"Yo." He said quietly.

Livio stiffened.

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah, you would be." Livio grated. "You're sorry about every damn thing on this whole planet."

Vash remained silent.

Livio rounded on him, his fists clenched.

"Is sorry all you have?" He demanded. "They massacre an entire village, and kill half the ships crew, and murder my wife, kidnap my kids and you just come and say _sorry._ "

"I tried to save them." Vash breathed through the ache in his heart.

"Yeah, well, you didn't try hard enough!" Livio spat at him and turned his back on him.

Vash breathed slowly, trying not to give into the overwhelming grief he felt. He had to be strong for Livio's sake, but tears slipped down his cheeks.

"You know," Livio rounded on him, raising his voice in fury. "You were just like this when Wolfwood died!"

Vash gaped at him, startled at the sudden turn of conversation. He wiped at his tears, trying to work out how he had offended Livio back then.

"I killed him!" Livio leaned forward, his lips twisting as he enunciated each word. "I killed your best friend! Why can't you for one moment stand up for yourself and defend your own heart!"

Vash gazed at the man; he had tears coursing down his face. Ah, now he understood. This was not about Wolfwood, nor was it about his own lack of defences. However the fact that Livio believed he had killed Wolfwood, that bothered him.

"You didn't kill Wolfwood, you know." Vash said calmly over his own grief. As he had hoped, this jerked Livio out of the worst of his anger. The man stared at him incredulously.

"I was there, I shot him. M-m-m Master C, he shot him..."

"No, Wolfwood chose to die. There is a difference."

"What?" Livio gaped at him. "I'd never tag Nicholas as one to go into something to die."

"No. He went in for life. He went there to save the children and he did."

"You did." Livio corrected him harshly. "I _saw_ what you did. I emptied three punishers at you. There you stood with your little six shooter and that damn weird plant power of yours." He gestured multiple feathers with his fingers.

Vash gazed levelly at him.

"It was the way his body regeneration worked off that liquid he drank. He would die if he did not drink it, yet he would die if he did. He chose to take a lethal dose in order to choose the manner of his death. He was dying from the time your master shot him, yet was granted the time to fight until he could call your heart towards the light. He fought for life, and your life was one of them."

Vash lightly deflected the punch the man threw at him, but grabbed at the man's wrists when Livio lifted him clear off the ground by the front of his coat.

"So this is Vash the Stampede, is it? You can see so much of my life, eh? You can see my misunderstandings, my pain, and you have the audacity to tell me what to do with it?"

Vash braced himself as Livio slammed his forehead against his. Ow. Ow. Ow! He saw sparks of light in front of his eyes. Livio dropped him and Vash staggered, holding his throbbing forehead.

"Let me tell you something, Vash the Stampede!" Livio yelled at him. "Look to your own life. See that girl you love, and watch her age and die without knowing your heart."

Livio pointed at Meryl among the others who had stopped what they were doing to watch the fight. "She loves you more than her own life, but you do nothing! _Nothing!_ At least I had the courage to follow my heart!" He gasped for breath. "At least, I took the time I was given." He gasped again and his voice caught. "At least I lived." He stared at Vash, tears streaming down his face. His last words came silently. "Even though she could not."

Vash walked over and deflected another punch, then to everyone's astonishment, hugged the man. Livio was as stunned as everyone was, then clawed his hands into Vash's back and sobbed onto his shoulder.

* * *

Watching another's raw grief was acutely uncomfortable. Meryl scowled at the pudding bowl in her hands. She put it down and was enraged to find her hands shaking. She was furious. How could Livio have _said_ that? How was something she had so quietly and deeply hoped for going to last out in the open? It did not matter that no one spoke of it. Everyone knew. Worst of all, now Vash knew. Oh he might go back to his usual denial and just play his usual happy go lucky self, but it would never go back to what it was. She bitterly resented Livio's words. Yet at the same time, did not have it in her heart to hold it against him. She knew how she had felt when she thought she had lost Vash, and knew it could be nothing on how the man must be feeling now.

Vash simply stood and hugged the man who clung to him as if he were all that existed. His howls of grief had become a steady sobbing. She glanced around at the others who were all studying their pudding as if they had a final exam on it the next morning. Great.

She got up and took a rug from the car and clambered up the rocks to find a good place to watch from. She found a spot where she couldn't see Vash or Livio and sat watching the road. Without her presence, the others took up brief conversations again.

The sun set and Vash walked back to the group, picked up Livio's supper and took it back to the man. She could hear the murmur of conversations but not their content, for which she was relieved. She pulled the blanket around herself as the night grew colder. The others tucked themselves up in the car, or on the sand around it. Vash did not look up at her as the others did before going to sleep. Livio did not return from his vigil of the western skies. She stared out at the empty desert and clenched her fists in frustration. She threw a few punches at the air to try and relieve the awful maelstrom of emotions she felt within her. She then let out a long sigh, biting her lip on the pathetic sob that snuck in at the end. She breathed slowly for a few moments and felt a modicum of calm descend. She shifted in her seat then stretched, as she lowered her arms she felt a muscle spasm in her back. Ow! Aah. Ow. Ow. Tears pricked at her eyes. Great. Wonderful. This had to officially be the worst day of her entire life.

.

Meryl woke the next morning, the cold on her face and the warmth of her blankets served to make her creep further down and try to go back to sleep. She heard a soft 'huf' sound and blinked the sleep out of her eyes and peered through her eyelashes in the pre dawn light. Vash was doing sit-ups. He had also chosen a place on the a little distance from their campsite so he wouldn't disturb those sleeping. She smiled sleepily, was it that he had noticed she slept with her back to them and had wanted to be the first thing she saw when she woke? She snuggled down in the warm blankets and smiled. She wondered if he knew how intoxicating he was. He did not even have to pick a spot in front of her; she would have found him within five seconds of waking, regardless.

Then the memory of the night before came blowing in like a dust devil, scattering her thoughts. He knew she loved him. He did not return her love. Yet he did this. She curled up in her blankets and hugged her chest, as a bolt of pain tore through her heart.

The last time she had felt this bad, he had hugged her, and somehow called up a peace and reassurance with the memories he had in his mind. She searched for that peace, but it was gone now, as elusive as the wind itself. She clenched her fists in her blankets, how could she make do with half remembered peace when what she so desperately longed for was for a shard of his broken heart. She buried her face in her pillow and pulled the blankets over her head so no one would hear her crying.


	43. Chapter 43

_**Chapter 43**_

They arrived back at the Orphanage the afternoon of the next day. Livio was driving and he floored the accelerator the whole way out on the sandy road out of December. Twilight was descending and oddly there were no lights on in the complex. This did not help Livio's patience and he roared into the yard, looping around Wolfwood's grave and bringing the jeep to a screeching halt outside the kitchen door. He killed the engine and he and Vash were out of the car before the others could fall back in their seats at the suddenness of the halt. They both ran in to the kitchen and Livio grabbed a torch. They ran through the room and into the main buildings. Meryl climbed out, staring at the shot out windows. What had happened here?

"There's no one here." Abe breathed, and clambered out of the car.

Calor frowned and leaped out of the car after him, she lightly touched the ground with her fingers.

"There are." She frowned and looked to the east. "Out in the desert."

"Livio!" Abe called.

The man stuck his head through the window.

"They're out there." He pointed.

.

They drove the car out to the edge of the orphanage property and Livio then grabbed his guns and ran out into the darkness with Vash on his tail.

"What happened?" Milly asked, bewildered. "The kitchen looked wrecked, like there had been a fight!"

"You know the plants we left here?" Calor asked.

"Rimor and Mutare?" Milly said in surprise.

"If they had fought not even the Eye of Michael could have taken this place. They've betrayed us." Calor spat in fury. "Remember what Teres said? What have I done compared to Ezrah and Mutare?"

There was sudden shouting on the other side of the dune. They grabbed their guns and raced along the trail Vash and Livio had left. They reached the crest to find Livio swamped by a pile of kids. Vash was scratching the back of his neck with a grin on his face. He noticed them on the dune and waved them down.

Meryl felt a thrill of horror when out from behind the rest of the dune curve Mutare walked out, carrying a baby in the crook of his arm and supporting Melanie as she limped over to them. The younger children milled around their feet uncertainly.

"You." Livio stood from among the children and raised his submachine gun and pointed it directly at Mutare. The children took one look at the gun and some began crying, the older ones grabbing the younger and pulling them out of the way.

"Put that down!" Melanie scolded and woke the baby. A very loud wail broke through the night.

"Ooh!" Melanie reached over and took the child from Mutare who gingerly was trying to bounce it again. "Livio! Put that thing away. Mutare isn't your enemy."

"But you knew Ezrah!" Livio did not lower his gun.

"Oh yes I did." Mutare said with a flat hatred. "Earned this for trusting of that backstabbing traitor." He pointed at his black hair. "But we're scaring the kids and they've been traumatised enough as it is. Let's go back to our camp and talk things out when we've got them settled again."

There was a brief tense silence broken only by the wailing baby.

"Oh for goodness sake, Livio. Put it down." Melanie scolded. Milly crossed the distance and slung her stun gun over her shoulder and took the baby.

"Thank you dear." Melanie said in a soft exhausted voice.

"C'mon let's get you all to bed." Milly called to the kids. "We'll leave the grownups to have their arguments."

"Thank you." Melanie said with heartfelt gratitude, and turned to walk with her.

"Stay a while." Milly whispered. "Livio needs to hear it from you."

The children clustered a little way away from them, but refused to return to their beds without Melanie.

Livio did not lower his gun and Mutare folded his arms and gave him a long seething stare.

"It happened two days ago." Mutare said. "The one calling himself Johnston came to our doors."

"Teres?" Calor breathed in revulsion.

"I thought it was him." Mutare said. "I thought he was acting, using Johnston's name to frighten us. He spoke and acted like a native. Called himself a Federal Marshal, which I'm guessing is some kind of political policeman here. I only went along because he did not seem to recognise me, and I didn't want to cause trouble for the orphanage.

He sent his goons in to raid this place for suspected weapons. Once they had cleared out your weapons vault -impressive, I must say-" he gave Livio a nod, "they tried to take the kids, saying this place wasn't fit for them. Well Rimor lost it about then. He wheeled himself up to Johnston and told him that that was kidnapping. Only Johnston recited some law which sounded legitimate to me, something about the government taking a proper interest in raising the children. Rimor called him on it, saying he was a liar. Somehow he knows the law here, I never knew they _had_ a written law here. Johnston didn't like that and made the mistake of addressing him as an upstart Terran. They were loading very confused children onto the trucks by then, and Melanie was kicking up a fuss. So Rimor simply grabbed this Johnston fellow with his feathers, threatening to kill him if he didn't rescind his order. Johnston acted like a native and shot Rilnor. He would have survived if it was a regular bullet, but I could feel the gate pulse from where I stood staring out of the window.

I realised that this Johnston was a plant and we were in trouble. I let Melanie do the screaming and distracting while I got all the little ones out back and hidden in the garbage pit and covered them with a blanket and sand. I managed to get a few of the older ones out by dropping them out of windows and telling them to run for this dune. Johnston took the rest and clubbed Melanie. When I got out to her Melanie unconscious and the rest of the thugs were gone. They took Rimor's body."

"Why didn't you fight?" Livio breathed in fury.

"Because I can't." Mutare said and raw pain entered his voice. "They stripped the rest of you of your powers by discharge; they cut the gate access out of me. I only know how to fight like a plant. I'm worse than useless." He stubbornly eyed Livio. "But I will do what I can."

Calor screwed up her face incredulously. She shouldered Chronica's bazooka, marched over to Mutare, and grabbed his upper arm. Mutare flinched and Calor's expression became one of revulsion.

"You're dying."

"As are you." Mutare said evenly.

"No. I mean I can feel it on you. Abe, come check this out."

"I can feel it from here, thanks." Abe shook his head.

"That's disgusting." Calor breathed. "That's like cutting out someone's kidneys and leaving them to live out their last hours in agony."

Mutare shrugged with a helpless expression on his face.

"Mut? Why didn't you say? How long have you got?"

He shrugged as if he knew there was nothing to be done.

"Who did this to you?"

"Ezrah." Mutare said with exhausted hatred.

"He killed Chronica and I killed him." Livio said as he walked over and then past Mutare and Melanie. He holstered his gun and crouched down among the children. "Sorry I scared you."

* * *

Meryl stood and shrugged the rug off her shoulders and placed it over the two young children she had been patting to sleep. Milly had fallen asleep with three children snuggled up to her and Meryl had covered them all with a blanket, not having the heart to wake Milly. Melanie slept in the next room along, alongside the very youngest.

They had returned to the orphanage, it made sense for the children's sake. Although Livio had moved them into the upper back rooms, more easily defended than the front rooms with broken windows. He had organised a watch schedule among the adults, then had assigned the eldest kids to sweep the rooms clear of glass and shells. Melanie had cooked a sumptuous meal with the supplies they had managed to salvage and everyone had gone to bed full, if not free of fear.

* * *

Vash fished around in the bottom of his bag. Two bottles left. He pulled one out and wandered upstairs to find the three who had been muttering at the edge of his mind. He did not know how he felt about the Terran plants. At times he felt a camaraderie he had never experienced with humans, yet at others they were more alien to him than the Terran humans could ever be.

He caught sight of a flash of movement as he stepped out onto the upper landing. Meryl was hiding again. She had been very carefully avoiding him since Livio's outburst. It was somewhat of a relief that he didn't have to deal with her just yet. No, he couldn't think of her now, not when he had other plants to contend with. They would pick it out of his mind easily. He drew a calming breath, silently thanking his brother for the survival tactic of slipping his private thoughts into a secret place. He pushed his worry about Knives away too, they had found the Terran ship and the Sandworm village, but none of the altered people or sandworm parts the First Leader had mentioned. Ugh, he needed a drink just for the sake of doing something. He stepped into the room, and they all glanced up with a slight jump. He smiled as he felt the silent apologies and assurances that they had thought him Teres. Abe and Calor were sitting beside Mutare. The two empty whisky bottles were joined by a third as Vash drew out a chair and sat down beside them.

(I could hear you all the way out by Wolfwood's grave.) He murmured.

(We're sitting Rimor's wake.) Calor said as Mutare took the bottle and poured Vash a glass, then refilled their own.

Vash raised his glass.

(To one who defended those who are precious to me. Rest in peace.)

He noticed everyone glance past him and caught sight of the corner of Meryl's cloak as she skipped past the door as silently as she could. He turned back and somehow the three Terrans had some agreement not to say anything. He was unbearably grateful to them.

(He was a lawyer back home.) Mutare said. (Only came on this gig because he was friends with Willa.)

(Sweet on her more like!) Calor laughed.

(Aw, no, they were just friends.) Abe said. (He was kindly to her, but more like a little sister. She was fifty years younger and affiliated with the influential Alvarez family. I'd heard that it was she that was intended for Agone Zolfilian.)

Calor gave an exclamation of surprise.

(No wonder she took it! I'd have also run light years if I had known I was intended for him.)

(It was not widely known.) Abe said. (Just speculation. For all I know rumour is all it was.)

(Her grave is outside Promontory. I put her name on a marker there.) Vash said quietly and took another sip.

There was silence as the others examined their drinks.

(Thanks.) Mutare said a little gruffly. (For a native, you're pretty decent.)

Vash smiled, sadly.

* * *

It was late and Meryl walked the passages back to the kitchen. She had sat her watch from ten till two in the morning until she had been relieved by Calor. She nibbled at a dry piece of toast as she stood at the door. Out in the moonlit night Livio sat on the nearest dune crest as watchman. There were another two, strategically placed around the building, but Livio had taken the post that watched the road. She hoped no one would be foolish enough to travel that way that night. She doubted there would be enough to recognise that there once had been a person there, once Livio was done with them. The loss of his wife and children brought an eerily bleak look to his eye that scared her.

She looked across to Wolfwood's grave then hastily dropped her eyes. Vash sat there, staring out into the moonlight. Watching Livio, as if he too sensed the destruction Livio would unleash if even slightly tempted. The way he looked after his friends caught at her heart. She pushed herself away from the door and walked across to the church. There she knew she could go to pieces without any witnesses.

.

Not wanting to make Vash aware of her presence by opening the church door, Meryl went to sit against the wall behind the church, a spot with a rock beside the wall that made a decent chair. A good place to remain unnoticed. She drew up her knees and glared out at the moon bleached desert. Her heart hurt. She knew no other way to describe it. It was entirely his fault, that tall man with such soulful eyes. If he was not around she would not be in half the difficulty she was now. Ah, her treacherous heart reminded her, but she would be worrying about where he was and how badly he was hurt. How did having him around make it all the more complicated? She dug her fingers through her hair and leaned back against the wall, enjoying the coolness against her warm face. She did not notice her own tears.

* * *

The first sun was just peeking over the horizon when Milly, who had been sweeping the broken glass outside near the kitchen, noticed Meryl abandon her broom and dart inside. She frowned after her friend, worried. Meryl was not one to hide.

"Mister Vash?" Milly called as she saw Vash shuffle past on the way to the communal bathrooms.

He glanced at her with a slight wince as he turned his face to the morning light and smiled.

"Yo, Milly."

She watched as he walked on making his way over to the bathrooms. He returned a while later and detoured across to the low wall near the kitchens where she now sat. It was part of the foundations of one of the many rooms that had not been rebuilt. He sat down, stretching his long legs out in front of him, his red coat tails coiled like flat snakes under them.

"Um." Milly did not know quite where to begin. It was a complicated question. "Did you have a good time last night?" She managed, testing if he was in a communicative mood that morning.

Vash grinned through his wince. He vaguely recalled Melanie confiscating a bottle and telling them they were disturbing the children.

"It was." They had toasted Rimor's life, and Vash now in the sober light of day, recalled he had said an awful lot about Wolfwood for some reason. "The company was good, plenty of alcohol and a comfortable bed to crash in."

He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his right palm, the gesture communicating the unspoken result of his revelry. It would have helped if he had actually found a bed; dozing semi upright against Wolfwood's cross punisher had not been very restful.

"Do you think we'll be leaving today?"

Vash lowered his hand and stared out towards December. Somewhere out there were orphans that needed their aid.

"The sooner the better." He said sombrely.

"Um, I wanted to ask you something kind of well, personal."

Vash raised his eyebrow curiously, then grinned and brightly gestured to himself.

"Is it that you harbour some unrequited love for a lonesome gunman?"

Milly laughed and blinked away tears at the same time. When she could speak again, she noticed Vash was also staring out at Wolfwood's grave.

"He's been gone almost two years now." She murmured.

Vash nodded, not saying anything.

"I saw the toast you gave him when we first arrived here the last time. He would have appreciated that."

She noticed the tears on his face, even now, she could not cry as easily as he did.

"Um, that personal question." She mumbled. "It's about, er, plants."

Vash straightened slightly, intrigued. He wiped at his tears.

"I was wondering do plants ever get married? All the plants I ever met never did."

"Chronica did." Vash pointed out.

They both turned to look; Livio still sat watch on the dune.

"I got the impression from the Terran's that that was very unusual. And you and your brother have been around for many years and you haven't settled. None of the plants we helped were attached either. Even Calor says she and Teres were lovers, but not the way humans would understand."

Vash rested his chin in his hands and stared at Wolfwood's grave.

"Milly." He murmured and shook his head with a slight grin. "I can only tell you what I think; I can't speak for the others. The Terran plants think differently to the way I do. Even my brother thinks differently to the way I do."

"I would like to know." Milly said fidgeting with her hands.

Vash scratched at the back of his neck. Then shifted in his seat until he found a comfortable position once more.

"Honestly, I don't know." He gave her a helpless stare. "I mean, I find humans fascinating. I know my brother is revolted by them." He shrugged.

"If you found a girl you loved that much, would you marry her if she were human?"

Vash leaned back and crossed one leg over the other, bouncing his foot as he thought. Then he folded his arms and glanced at Wolfwood's grave.

"I don't know." He said quietly, pulling a face of worried confusion, as if he desperately wanted to answer truthfully and all he had to present was bewilderment.

Milly hunched her shoulders and twisted her hands together.

"It's just that I was thinking about asking Abe if he wanted to walk out with me, but if plants don't get on with humans in that way, I thought perhaps I best leave it."

She fidgeted, not seeing the expression of startled surprise that flashed across Vash's face. He stared openly at her, his smile widening.

"What are you talking to me for? Go for it!" He exclaimed. "Didn't you have a saying about matters of the heart?"

Milly nodded.

"But it's just that now I don't know. I'm all confused. I mean I thought I loved Mister Priest, but he's dead and, and it hurt. I mean I loved him even when he was dead. Is that right? And then Mister Abe comes along and he's like you are Mister Vash, and I know you don't like being pinned down. He is kind of the same. But he makes me laugh. I know what my big big sister said, only I'm scared now." She sniffed and wiped her hand across her eyes. "I wish I was home, she would know what to say."

Vash stood up.

"C'mon, let's go. I'll get you a bottle of whiskey, that should help with his aching head. And if you smile right you might get a yes out of him!"

"Mister Vash, I'm not asking him when he's feeling ill."

Vash laughed knowingly.

"Best time to ask a man, when you're holding the cure to his ills! C'mon!"

Vash walked off with too much of a skip in his step to be heading back to bed.

"Mister Vash!" Milly scrambled to her feet and he picked up the pace with a laugh.

"Never hold back in matters of the heart!" Vash grinned.

.

Milly walked over to where Abe and others slept on the floor of the mess hall. Although it was early, a few were awake, but were enjoying the last few moments of idle luxury. Vash leaned against the door with a half smile on his face. He had donated his last bottle of whiskey for this purpose. If nothing else, Abe would gain some whiskey and Milly would know how he felt. Sometimes all that was needed for a friend to start a good relationship was a little encouragement. He pondered why people seemed to come to him for that, he had a spectacularly awful personal record, despite the rumours. Perhaps it was because he took the time to listen? He laughed ruefully to himself, how could he not; he loved them and wanted them to be happy.

Milly crossed the room and those who were awake raised their heads or turned to watch her, some waking others. Abe opened his eyes and snapped them shut, his expression telling of a world of private misery. If his head was protesting anything as badly as Vash's own, then he had great sympathy for him, and no remorse for what Milly was about to do.

Milly came to stand beside his pillow and suddenly tensed. Abe opened one eye, then both his eyes snapped open. He pushed himself up gingerly but eagerly.

"Milly girl!" He exclaimed to the groans of protest from others whose heads were tender. "Have a seat." He patted his pillow. "Is that a present for me?"

Milly sat down, as Abe wincingly scooted to one side. She smiled shyly and handed the bottle over.

In one quick movement, Abe opened the bottle and took a few determined gulps, his eyes screwed up against the burn as it flowed down his throat. He then lowered it and breathed out a sigh.

"I also brought you some water." Milly held out a water canteen.

From the door Vash noticed that everyone else was awake now. They were all watching the odd scenario. From the ill-concealed grins, they were all aware what Milly's intentions were and were waiting on Abe's realisation.

Abe took a long drink of water and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

He turned to Milly and raised the Whiskey bottle in one hand and the water canteen in another.

"I love you!" He declared and gave her a hug.

Milly blushed crimson and there were whistles, laughter and groans of protest at the noise from the others in the room.

Abe sat back, taking in the others. He held up the bottle and the canteen.

"Do you mind if I share this, there are some here who could do with some medication."

"Ah, sure." Milly said, her face falling slightly.

There were muffled laughs from their audience but Abe didn't notice. He simply handed his gifts over to those who could reach. He raised his arms over his head, his fingers interlocked as he stretched.

"I have more pressing things to do." He said simply, then turned, leaned close and whispered in her ear. "Milly girl, how hard will I get slapped if I kiss you right now?"

Milly didn't voice her reply.

"Get a room!" Someone threw a pillow after ten seconds of astonished silence.

* * *

Meryl slipped off before he could turn and see her. She found the spot behind the church again and sat there staring numbly out at the dunes. She wanted so badly to be happy for Milly, and she was, but it was so hard when her own personal world was imploding. She took a deep breath and clenched her fist as if to hold in the anguish. She closed her eyes and smiled. He was alive. She could still help him, though the more she learned of him the less she understood. There had to be something she could do. But she had done so much, all she personally could, and it had somehow not been enough. She gazed unseeingly out at the dunes. A flash of morning light off Livio's guns caught her eye and she felt a stab of guilt. He was in real pain and hers was mostly imagined. She dropped her gaze to her hands and clenched them both into fists. That was enough of that. She was tired of running and feinting and ignoring her heart. This awkward state that existed between them meant that he was at least somewhat aware of what she felt, despite his act to the contrary. She had watched the whole interaction between him and Milly, and knew why he had hesitated at first. He had no true answer for his own heart. She was not sure if he did not dare think of it, or if he honestly did not want to hurt her feelings with a refusal, but she was sick of the awkwardness.

* * *

"It's the best place to get ammo in a hurry." Livio informed her as Meryl clucked her tongue.

They had left their battered jeep in a nearby lane, with Mutare guarding it. The plant had a hangover, but was determined not to be left out of the morning's activities. Livio had given him a pistol, but Mutare preferred a catty he had found at the orphanage. He was quite proficient at using it.

"It's Halday's Scrap." Meryl hissed at him as they proceeded down the lane so tall and narrow only dim shadows held any remembrance of sunlight. "In the middle of the Mariona slum district." She kept a wary eye on the buildings around her. In some ways this place could be more dangerous than the Outer, especially to an outsider who did not know what they were doing. She had spent a brief spell inspecting the more incredulous insurance claims in the district when Bernadelli first assigned Milly to her. It was little different now, more sparsely populated but no less dangerous.

"Halday's an old friend. But we're not there to see him." Livio paused, as if considering the company Meryl kept. "And unless he knows you, it's probably not a good idea to go in alone; you won't make it out alive." He jerked his hand back at the open gates at the end of the lane.

Meryl grimaced; she had been trying not to watch how the men loafing on the balconies that overlooked the lane were not loafing once they had passed them. She wished for a moment that Vash had come, but he and the other plants were scattered throughout December, trying to pick up clues as to where the children were, if they had come near December at all. Meryl wished them luck keeping Vash from hurtling in pell-mell if they had.

Meryl had accompanied Livio, simply because he knew her the least. She knew Milly would ask her the cause of her distress if she remained. Only was her bewilderment and confusion, distress? She sighed to herself as she followed the tall silver haired man. Perhaps she was just exhausted in both body and soul. That could be it. Yes. Nothing to do with Vash at all, not at all.

Focusing back on the task at hand, she eyed the narrow alley. Livio would need help shooting his way out of this place afterwards if he made one tiny misstep. Meryl eyed the guards who stared down at them and wondered who she was kidding. Livio would probably relish the opportunity.

"Er, Meryl, you can stop watching me so closely."

Meryl jumped. Had he read her thoughts about them being able to fight their way out of there? She felt herself blush at how silly they were.

"I just wanted to help." She muttered.

He gazed down at her, his grey hair falling in his eyes. He grinned slightly guiltily.

"I won't do anything. Go crazy, shooting people," he unconsciously gestured the watchers she had been worrying about, "you know."

She bit her lip to catch her sigh of relief that his thoughts were not what she had been thinking.

Livio pushed his cape over one shoulder.

"I owe him too much for that."

She nodded, they all did. Not a debt any could repay.

"I owe him my life." Livio said huskily. His voice so soft she could hardly hear it. "I heard how he lived his life. How he was so against killing. Yet he killed to save me. Me! I am the most worthless maggot on this planet, and he did that for me. As if I was worth something. Worth saving."

Meryl nodded; she knew how it felt to have Vash fight for her. The way Livio seemed to relive the moment before his eyes; she knew he had taken it to heart as deeply as she had. She could not find her voice to empathise. She clamped her teeth together and took a deep calming breath. How did he manage to speak of it without crying?

"No one ever did that before." He said with a surprised note of wonder. "My old master tried, but in the end only made a mockery of it. Him? He fought for me when I was worthless and helpless and could do nothing for him. Can you imagine that? I, I want to give something back. So, I don't go hunting as I want. I wait on his lead."

Meryl frowned trying to work out how to break it to Livio that Vash did not exactly excel at planning, or leading. Livio caught her frown and grimaced.

"Um, Meryl, what I really wanted to say was sorry."

She stared at him in utter surprise. What was this all about? He was staring ahead as if suddenly the gates at the far end of the lane offered a mortal threat.

"Um," he continued rapidly in a slightly wooden voice, "I was mighty upset. I said things to him I shouldn't have. So everyone heard. I am sorry."

Meryl felt her heart tumble in her chest. He had been worrying about that? With all the other heartache and anxieties he had to carry, he was worried about that?

"Livio." She said, proud her voice did not shake. There was so much she wanted to say, so much she had to say. So much that could be portrayed without words. She clenched her fists so they would not reach for her derringers. "Thank you." She managed.

He glanced tentatively at her; as if uncertain she had forgiven him. She was not sure she had, but he had somehow called Vash in on all of this, and reminded her just why she loved him so deeply. She wanted to cry just thinking of that. She reached out and touched his arm.

"Livio." She whispered. "I'm sorry." It was all she could get out, but she could see in his eyes that he understood.

He held her gaze with an aching sorrow, then his expression firmed into determination. He breathed out and shook out his shoulders as if he could feel a physical weight lifted from them. Meryl marvelled at the change. Their watchers certainly noticed. Some shifted so that their guns were within easy reach. Livio ignored them; no one could surprise him now. Relief and focus had heightened his senses.

.

Livio walked nonchalantly into the scrap yard and instead of heading over to the main dealer's offices, headed off through the piles of scrap to what looked like a shed. The sign over the door said 'Bruno Smithson, General Supplies'.

They arrived as the door jerked open and a kid of about fourteen stumbled out.

"We don't do charity brat! If you're quick on your legs a kicked arse will be the only thing you get."

The boy scrambled around and opened his mouth to swear at the man. He froze as his eye snagged on Livio. The boy opened and closed his mouth a few times, his face going pale. Livio stopped a few feet away to watch the display. The boy raised his hand and pointed at Livio's face. His mouth worked but nothing came out. He cleared his throat and spat, then in a voice which jumped from a boys soprano to a man's bass.

"It's him! The nail man!"

Livio frowned at the boy who cleared his throat again. Bruno, who stood in the shed doorway, gave Livio a familiar nod.

"Got your supplies. They've been taking up my shelf space for a month now, didn't you get my message?"

"Nope. But we'll take it all, and I'm looking to purchase a few weapons."

"Ahh." Bruno grinned.

"What, you'll sell it to him, and you won't give me a loan?" The boy squeaked.

"It's called money, get me some and you'll get your gun." Bruno rolled his eyes at Livio. "Give me a second to whistle up my dogs."

"Dogs?" The boy squeaked again. "Don't call no dogs! Mister Nail Man, they took everyone, even Lil'Jack what gave you your hat and all. I found where they're at and I'm gonna get them back. I just need a gun. Loan me one."

"Wait." Livio said quietly as Bruno raised his fingers to his lips.

"You know the kid?"

"I might." Livio said very quietly. There was a faint tone of menace there, which made both Bruno and the boy stare at him. "Your name?" Livio barked at him.

"Bill." The boy supplied in a suitably deep voice.

"Where is the woman who looked after you?" Livio asked.

"Staking out the best sniping spots."

"What's her name?" Livio asked, softly.

"Miss Jasmine." He paused. "Did you know her?" He asked with genuine curiosity as his voice squeaked again.

Livio took a deep breath.

"Bruno, give the boy an AK47 and teach him how to load it and fire it."

"You're awesome Nail Man!"

"You're coming with me." Livio growled at him, but this did nothing to lessen the boy's excitement.

"Surely a non lethal weapon for a kid..." Bruno murmured as Livio stepped into the shed.

"I could handle all of the guns you have in here by the time I was his age." Livio shrugged. "Give him the gun and enough terror for him not to shoot himself in the foot with it."

Bruno looked down at the eager youngster and then at Livio.

"There's word on the street that something happened to the Orphanage. Now no local lads would touch that Orphanage, it is guarded by winged demons. You're not one of them winged demons are you?"

Livio turned to Bruno, a flat glare reminding the man that this was a business transaction not a speculative discussion.

"Gun, right." Bruno scurried into the shed and hunted through his collection.

"Nail Man, you're kind of even scarier without all them nails." Bill mumbled awed.

Livio reached out and landed a hand on the boy's head. The boy dodged but not before Livio caught his hand in his black hair.

"You're all the way out here from Octovern?"

"Ow! Leggo! Ow, yes Mister Nail Man."

"How did you get here?"

"Followed Miss Jasmine, Sir. Ow. Leggo!"

"Does she know you're here?"

The boy was silent.

Livio narrowed his eyes.

"No, but we've been helping her! We also want Lil'Jack, and the others back."

"We?"

"Joe and me. You met Joe. 's got blond hair."

"Who is with Miss Jasmine?"

"Dunno! This girl and this man she met here. They spent the day talking about how they would snipe from the cliffs, only, Joe and I have no guns so I went to get some."

Livio released him and Bill eyed him in askance as he rubbed his head.

Bruno returned with the AK47, Livio inspected it and handed it to the boy.

"Listen to what Bruno has to say, we'll see you in half an hour."

"What? Now?" Bruno spluttered, flabbergasted.

"My associate and I will load the jeep with our supplies. You'll be back in time to finish the deal." Livio said evenly.

"You owe me for this."

"Do I?" Livio breathed with a very flat expression in his eyes.

Bruno ignored him and pushed the boy ahead of him out of the shed.

.

Mutare had brought the Jeep in, and then had wandered off after Bruno to get some practice in with the pistol.

"Who is Miss Jasmine?" Meryl asked as she walked into the shed where Livio was packing crates full of ammunition.

Livio let out a long sigh.

"She knew Nick and I as kids."

"She looked after you?"

Livio grunted ruefully.

"No. She was younger than us. I was a messed up kid, stuff happened, and I ran away."

"You didn't hurt her?" Meryl asked, mouthing Razlo.

Livio's eyebrows shot up.

"How do you know about- Vash didn't say did he?"

"No. You got drunk one night and made some odd passing remarks to Milly. We know enough of the situation to piece it all together."

Livio gaped at her then grinned sheepishly.

"That big girl's got more smarts than she shows. I only thought Chronica and Vash knew. Razlo is dormant, but every so often I lose it and wake up..." He shrugged. "The other kids say I killed her dog, only I don't remember it. There was blood on my hands though. I honestly would never harm her."

Meryl thought back to how Livio had moved from his usual fighting to the exceedingly fluid agility he had displayed while killing Ezrah. He had been almost plant like. Was that the difference? He had had a particular harmonic in his voice when he spoke about Jasmine. Meryl blinked as she recognised the name. He had named his daughter after her.

"You like her?"

Livio gave a huff that could have been a laugh or a sigh.

"She makes the world a better place by being in it." He said. "She would never recognise me now. Like Nicholas, they enhanced my body so much that none of my childhood acquaintances would ever recognise me."

He picked up the crate, then stacked it on top of another and lifted it with an ease Meryl envied. She then realised she had been standing there staring at him the whole time and hastily returned packing.


	44. Chapter 44

_**Chapter 44**_

Bill sat in the front seat with Livio and directed him through narrow rubbish strewn streets. Many of the houses were abandoned, but enough were inhabited to make driving dangerous for the unwary. Mutare had chosen a rifle from Livio's collection he was supposed to have taken back to their rendezvous at the Orphanage. But Bill's intel had rather distracted them all. They arrived outside a squat single story building abutting a large courtyard. There were coils of barbed wire along the top of the ten foot wall. Livio gave a grunt as he reversed the jeep and backed it up they alley. He had a very mean expression in his eyes, but he was grinning.

"What did you see?" Mutare asked.

"I know this place." Livio declared with a grim smile. "They have crossed me before. They are never going to cross me again." He glanced at the ammunitions supply strapped to the back of the jeep. "Hmm. Can't have this lying around, too tempting. We'll just have to take it with us. Meryl, you're really recognisable, get down on the floor. Mutare cover her with that rug, then get in the front, you're riding shotgun. Bill, you're my apprentice for this jaunt, do what I say, when I say, no questions. Get in the back and protect Meryl."

"Yes sir!" Bill gave a salute.

"What's the plan?" Meryl asked, taking out two derringers.

"Uh, this?" Livio revved the engine.

Meryl gave a squawk of indignation as Mutare dumped the rug over. Bill stood on her trying to get into the back seat as Livio accelerated. She managed to get the rug off her head as she was flung hard against the passenger door of the car. Livio drove directly for the front gates. There was a thunder of gunfire as Mutare took out the front doors of the courtyard. For all his complaints that he could not fight, his marksmanship with an untried rifle was excellent.

Meryl hauled the rug over Bill's head and her own as the gate and most of the arch above it rained down on them. Livio slammed on the breaks and the car drifted across to a rocking halt beside a large water tank and the wall of the squat house.

"Meryl!" He hissed. "Get the drain under the car, they hide kids in there. I'm going to explain to management how upset I am. Mutare guard the car. Bill, with me!"

Meryl shoved open the door and fell out of the car, rug and all as bullets strafed over them. She heard all three return fire as she looked about for the drain. Not quite under the car, but sheltered by it enough to hid what she was doing. She reached back into the car and grabbed the wheel spanner and crawled over to the drain. She peered down into darkness.

"Hello?" She shouted.

She could not hear anything over the noise of the gunfight.

"Is someone there?"

She heard a faint, "Help!" and that was enough for her. There was someone down there. She hooked the spanner into the drain lid as Livio leaped down with Bill in his wake and ran up the front stairs of the main house.

She pulled at the drain cover as Mutare's shadow fell over her. With an almighty heave, the drain cover came up and she shoved it to one side.

"You're going to need this."

In the dust beside her landed the towrope and the cable Livio had used to strap the crates to the car. Mutare then handed her a flash light.

"Hurry. I don't think those idiots are going to be nursing their injuries for long. They'll want payback."

Meryl rapidly tied knots in the rope and cable. She anchored it on the car wheel, then threw it down. She checked her derringers were in easy reach and scrambled down the rope. She was panting by the time she reached the floor. The flash light dangling from her mouth only illuminated the patch of ground she stood on. She flashed it around the room in a jittery motion. It was cold down here. Too cold for an underground cave. There was a dull hum that buzzed in a disorientating manner around the cave.

She flashed the torch over the crates that were stacked to one side. There were too many hiding places for snipers for her liking. She was a perfect target with her flashlight.

"Hello?" She called. "I'm Meryl Stryfe, we're here to rescue the children stolen from the orphanage."

There was another long silence. She released the rope and hesitantly walked away from it, sweeping her flashlight over the crates and boxes scattered in the room. She then caught a movement and froze. A young boy of about ten pushed himself up from the floor. He frowned, blinking in the torch light.

"You need to climb up out of here. And hurry."

He walked hesitantly over to her, and then stared at her in a numb kind of awe. Irritated at his distraction, she waved him over to the rope.

"How many others?" She asked as he tugged on it.

"Five are all that are left." He said grimly. He was covered in dust and his face had several days layers of tear trails.

"What did they do to the rest?" Meryl asked.

"Took 'em." The boy scrambled up the rope.

Meryl hunted down the four other children in the darkness. There were two sullen girls who, after they realised she was not a dream, shinnied up the rope faster than the first boy. The last two were more difficult. One was a boy of eight, the other a five year old girl with an injured leg. She had to talk the boy into letting her near the girl enough to bind her leg. The poor kid had a fever too.

"I'll carry her up." She told the boy. "Go first."

He stubbornly squatted by the rope and waited while she hunted around the crates for some rope to tie the child to her back. The last thing she wanted was for them to slip off and fall to their death. She found the source of the annoying buzzing sound, a fridge set into the wall. She unlatched the large door to check if there was anything she could possibly salvage. Icy air blasted out at her, within was a space easily twice the size of the room they were in, covered in racks with sealed boxes…. Meryl all but slammed the door closed again. She was glad her back was to the children. That they had not seen her expression on her face. This was not just a slavers den, or possibly the slave trade was only a cover for its real purpose. She took a sharp breath as her mind shut down the terror that threatened to overload it. She had a mission; she could not go to pieces. She turned woodenly, and untied her cape and reversed it. She hiked the ill child onto her back then tied the cape crosswise across her back. It would hold, should the child slip.

"Get up the rope!" She ordered the staring boy. He reluctantly did so.

They crawled out into the dusty sunlight. Meryl felt several hands help her out. The children were all crouched behind the car, under the rug.

"That everyone?" Mutare demanded as Meryl tugged her cape free and let the little girl crawl across to her bother. She lay half curled under the car, feeling shaky. From the shock or the climb she could not tell. She nodded her response and Mutare shoved the grill closed.

"Stay down!" He suddenly ordered as several gunshots cracked overhead, and Meryl heard Livio return fire. She heard the deep thunder of truck engines start up then heard the single retort of a revolver. Meryl closed her eyes as relief flooded over her; he had arrived.

* * *

Vash had been trying to find his way to a certain house in the Mariona district of December, when he caught by a movement out of the corner of his eye. He stepped into a doorway and watched for a moment. He shook his head wryly; he noticed them by the way they sneaked, and recognised them by acquaintance. He turned from his house hunt and slipped into the shadows after them and followed. One among them certainly should have known better than to sneak. It was perhaps a fortunate thing that the district was so sparsely populated, or they would have been picked off by the petty gangs that operated certain streets. He stepped along behind them as they approached a house. He was just in time to see a car swerve out into the road ahead of them, full of gunmen who took out the front doors. He silently stepped up beside the group where they were watching the spectacle Livio was creating with their jaws hanging open.

"Hallo." He said casually. Livio was certainly making an entrance.

"Vash!"

He almost fell over with how hard one of the group's members threw her arms around him and hugged him.

"We want to go this way." He pointed down the narrow alley to their right and carefully disentangled himself.

"Do you know this place?" A sceptical voice asked, in the tone of one recovering from a fright.

"Yes." He grinned. "Let's go and join Livio before there's nothing left to do!"

* * *

The second door Livio kicked down, he hit paydirt. Bill sprinted into the room as several of the children there called out his name. There were twelve chained by shackles to an iron hoop in the wall. He thought he recognised four of them. He would have to find the keys, he had no patience for grinding shackles off.

"Bill! Stand guard." He ordered.

"Sir!" Bill ran back to the door and hefted his gun.

"If anyone bothers you, shoot their legs." Livio hurried off. He returned a few moments later with a large ring of keys from the overseers office, which had been empty. He slipped past Bill and handed the eldest kid the keys.

"Er, Mister Nail Man!" Bill called from the door.

Livio stepped out of the room found that four others had joined Bill outside the door. The boy gripped his AK47 possessively and eyed the others.

"Lina?" Livio exclaimed. "And Zachery?" He felt his expression slip as solid dread poured over him. Zachery Thompson was Eye of Michael. The main weapons manufacturer for their headquarters. Unless he was out here in his own personal capacity. Livio then remembered the man's affection for Lina. He felt a rush of relief. The Eye of Michael had nothing to do with this.

"What are you doing here? Where is Mick?" He blurted out trying to cover his panic.

"Safe." Lina glared at him.

Livio opened his mouth to speak to the third person, but she raised her head and his words caught in his throat.

"This is Miss Jasmine." Vash introduced her. "She's from an orphanage in Octovern, like you she was tracking down kidnapped children."

Livio felt the fire burn through his veins. They had taken _her_ children. Fury, alarm and fear roared around him. All he could think of was how he had to get her out safely.

"This is Livio. He runs security at the local Orphanage." Vash introduced him jauntily.

Livio hardly registered that Miss Jasmine was staring at him in astonishment.

"Livio?" She blinked and stared apprehensively at him, then lifted her chin with a fierce determination of the terrified. "I knew someone called Livio. He save my life once. Maybe it's a good omen, you having the same name. Thank you for fighting for the kids."

Livio hardly heard what she said. What was she thanking him for? He had not begun to rescue the kids. He felt his resolve strengthen ten times again. He would not fail her faith in him, if it was the last thing he did.

"Bill, guard Miss Jasmine."

"Sir!" Bill saluted then stood beside Jasmine. She took one look at the gun and Livio realised he had to get out of there double quick before she voiced the fury in her eyes.

"Don't follow me." He said quietly.

It was too much to hope for to get Vash to obey that. The man jogged along beside him.

"Go back." Livio snapped at him.

Vash smiled slightly.

"I thought I'd help."

Livio grabbed him as soon as they rounded the corner out of sight.

"You _can't_. Go help with the rescue."

Vash just smiled at him and stuck his hands in his pockets and continued at his side.

"Vash, get lost."

"Where are we going?"

"I'm not telling you."

Ignoring Vash as best as he could, Livio kicked down three doors before he found the man he wanted. He took out kneecaps and trigger hands in quick succession, then holstered his double fang and drew a pistol he wore at his back. He very seldom used this weapon. But today it seemed appropriate.

"Trawson." He said conversationally to the gang boss who was trying to return his stare with cool indifference. Even in a wheel chair he was an intimidating presence. Livio wondered if any of his bodyguards had ever been shot before the way they were carrying on.

"You seem to have forgotten our last discussion."

Trawson's face went white.

"They weren't your kids!" He exclaimed. "Livio, I swear!"

With agonizing effort, Livio lowered the pistol. He so badly wanted to end this man's life. But not with Vash standing there, and not with this gun.

"No." He said with velvet menace. "Even worse. They were _hers_. A warning for you, and all the scum that trade children. The Octovern orphanage is under my protection. Touch it and you spend the rest of your days regretting it."

Trawson scowled furiously at him.

"We're not trading slaves any more Livio." He said stubbornly. "We're…"

They were interrupted by a thunderous explosion of a mortar shell. The bodyguard reacted, suddenly not as incapacitated as they had acted. They threw themselves across the floor as the roof fell in.

Livio spun around and gaped incredulously out at the courtyard now clearly visible behind him. A Federal mortar truck had ploughed through the remains of the gate.

"Who called the bloody Feds?" He demanded.

"As if I'd invite the law!" Trawson protested.

He rounded on Vash, and found the man gone. Damn it! Where had that good for nothing plant sneaked off to now?

* * *

Vash left Livio to settle his grievances with Trawson. He had heard something, and a glace from the window confirmed it. He passed Miss Jasmine and Milly, herding a group of children back along the passage. They picked up pace when he urged them on. He went to help Zachery and Lina unlock the kids. It was taking far too long to sort out which keys slotted in which lock. He borrowed the AK47 from Bill and shot the iron loop out of the wall.

"Get them down to the car. Bill, you listen to Zachery, he's in charge."

Bill gaped at him as he took the gun back.

"You're him!" He whispered incredulously. "Vash the Stampede!"

"Er, yeah." Vash winked. "No time for autographs. ZT, the Feds are on their way."

"Move it!" Zachery helped the children to their feet; Lina lifted a boy with an injured foot.

"Hey, I wanted to ask you something." Bill said sidling up to Vash as Zachery herded the kids out of the door.

"What?" Vash asked, wondering how to tell the kid it was urgent he left now without scaring him.

"Your show said there would be nudity, why wasn't there any?"

Stunned, Vash gaped at him as Zachery gave a snort of laughter.

"You really want to see his lily white arse on TV? Believe me, nudity isn't all it's cracked up to be! Get moving Bill, you're covering our rear!"

Lina choked a laugh as Bill hurried after them, protesting.

Vash sprinted through the building, searching. He hadn't seen any of Livio's children here, and that worried him. Where were they? He checked the basements, but aside from abandoned dirty blankets, they were empty. But that emptiness told another story than the one they had discovered today. There had been many more children here, and very recently. He pulled open a last door and dove to one side as gunfire strafed across it. He dropped to the floor and listened. Two gunmen, neither very experienced and very jittery.

"I'm a friend of Miss Jasmine, I'm coming in!" He called.

"Like hell you are." A girl's voice called back. He wouldn't get them to trust him in time. Damn.

"There's a window behind you." He called. "Shoot it out. Get out before the Feds surround this place. Walk to the south road, and follow it out into the desert, it will take you to the orphanage. We'll find you on the road."

He turned to run down the passage as thunder shook the building and the roof fell in.

He picked himself up as just then three thugs decided to jump on him. He fought and elbowed one in the gut, kicked the knife out of the others hand and just dodged the bullet the third was trying to put through his brain. He shot the gun out of the man's hand and kicked it away for good measure.

"Holy crud." One of the thugs breathed. "The rumours were true!"

Vash glanced back at him. From their wide-eyed stares, they recognised him, but it was worse, they feared him.

"What rumours?" He asked irritably.

"That winged demons guard the December Orphanage, only no one ever told us it was a bleeding plant."

"What did you do with those orphans?" Vash asked in a very quiet voice.

"Us?" The man protested. "Nothing! Swear it on my mother's grave! They wanted us to, but we know about you."

"Not you, but them winged demons." His partner put in.

"Plants are winged demons, stupid, didn't ya see that TV bit where him and this other plant fought? All wings and weird feathers and scary mind powers…" The man trailed off, realising Vash was standing right there. Vash bit his lip, his heart aching. He hadn't meant to frighten people. Scared people did stupid things. The last thing he wanted was them hunting him because they were afraid of him.

"Who were they and what did they want?" Vash demanded tiredly.

"It was them Terrans!"

"No don't!" One of the men he had winded leaped to his feet.

Vash managed to dodge the worst of the blow, but it sent him reeling into the wall. He kicked and elbowed his way out of the fight as three other thugs came to help their friends. He realised that the three he had first attacked were trying to protect him. They were yelling conflicting things at each other. Then it was too late.

The Feds arrived and with several shots at the ceiling ended the fight.

Vash trailed along, handcuffed in a row with the six thugs who had been arrested with him. He saw Livio being loaded into a truck ahead of him. It drove off and they were loaded onto a different truck. Vash found himself with quite some clearance on either side of him as the thugs reluctantly shared the bench with him. The door closed and Vash gazed at them, they flinched.

"Tell me about these Terrans." He said.

* * *

Vash looked up from where he sat in his cell as the door clicked open. He stared at Meryl put her head around the door and signed to him to be quiet. She was followed by Lina and a very disgruntled looking Livio.

"What ar-"

"Shhh!" Meryl skipped over to him and gave him such a glare that he flinched back. She hastily inserted the keys to his shackles and freed him. After shooting him another glare to ensure his silence, they left. Lina lead them to an upstairs window where a zip line lead down to a nearby yard. Meryl sneaked the keys back into the office and rejoined them to find Lina glaring at Vash.

"What is going on?" He demanded.

"Hurry up." She pushed him out, then followed him. Vash caught her to steady her.

"Not that we're not grateful." Livio complained as Meryl hurried to the end of the line and unhooked it.

"W-wait!" Vash pointed at Lina still in the jail.

"Shhh!" Meryl hissed at him and tossed the line into the air as Lina reeled it in. She then swung herself out of the window and shinnied down the drain pipe.

"Come on and stay quiet!" Meryl hissed at them, and hurried out of the yard, through a white painted gate and into the back street where Lina joined them.

"I must say." Livio murmured in a low voice that earned him only glares but no shushing. "Girls do everything neatly, even rescuing."

They arrived at the car where Milly and Abe waited. It was the jeep Livio had rented in Black Tomb Pass.

"Where's all my ammo!" Livio protested.

"In your weapons locker." Milly smiled at him. "It's safe from the children."

They climbed into the car and Milly sped off down the back streets.

"Can we talk now?" Vash asked aggrieved.

"Yes."

"Why all the creeping and silence?" He asked.

"We do not need the Feds involved with this!" Meryl snapped. "Not with what we just discovered."

"What?" Livio and Vash demanded at the same time.

"The Terrans who took your orphans are involved with the December chapter of the Eye of Michael."

"What!" Livio exploded. "That's impossible!" He found himself eyed by everyone in the car, including Milly who was not looking where she was driving. He frantically waved her back to her task. "Er, there is no December chapter of the Eye of Michael."

"Yes there is." Milly explained. "Their chapter house is two hour's drive south into the desert."

Livio shook his head.

"No there isn't, well, the buildings might still be there, but I…" he glanced at Vash. "Er, I had a disagreement with them two years back. I, er, shut them down. Permanently."

"Well, someone's moved in and claimed the name." Abe said.

Livio raised his eyebrows.

"They're claiming to be the Eye of Michael." He breathed incredulously. "Have they any idea what the _real_ Eye of Michael will do to them if they find out?"

"We need to get to them soon!" Vash declared.

"Livio, I think they are the real thing." Lina said. "Zachery recognised some of the people."

"Where's Zachery now?"

"Adding defences to the orphanage. It's the best place from which to mount a raid. We're thinking of doing it tomorrow night, it's a dark night till three in the morning when the first of the waning crescent moons rise."

Livio bit his lip on the retort that a dark night would not help them. No. Even he needed a day's rest if he was going to do the strenuous fighting such a raid would require. It would also help to have some sort of plan. These Terrans would have his kids and he intended to free them. He dared not hope that they might have his own son and daughter; he could not handle that loss again.

* * *

Returning to the orphanage, they had eaten supper, and had drawn straws for watch duty. Vash was relieved that his was the early watch. He needed to do some walking and stretching, he ached all over. Once his watch was done, he had not been able to find an empty room. There were children crowded in to each room and the mess hall space was taken up by adults. Meryl had fallen asleep on the table, and there was so little space, someone had simply put a blanket around her shoulders instead of waking her.

Vash slipped out and headed for the church. It was empty within, but the interior of the building was freezing. Vash let the door swing closed behind him, he was so tired he did not feel the hardness of the pew, let alone the cold.

Voices woke him in the early hours just before dawn.

"Livio." Miss Jasmine spoke, her voice muted in the church.

Vash lifted his head and blinked blearily as he heard Livio scramble to his feet, it sounded as though he had been kneeling at the altar.

"You're _him_? You are, aren't you?" She whispered then coughed in a flustered manner. "I,-I-It was you that saved my life back then…sorry." She cleared her throat. "What happened to you?

Vash blinked, wondering if he was still dreaming.

"The truth?" Livio said hesitantly. "I got involved with the wrong crowd and did many evil things. Now, I'm trying for redemption."

No. Vash cracked a yawn, trying to be quiet about it. It was too damn cold for him to be dreaming.

"And your partner?" Miss Jasmine said encouragingly. "I saw your family picture in your room. I'd love to meet the lucky lady who gave you your children."

Livio's pain was eloquent in the silence.

"... she was killed." He gasped, then his voice returned strong with fury and resignation. "I killed the man who killed her. That might give you a glimpse of the kind of life I once led."

"I'm sorry." Miss Jasmine whispered. After a pause she spoke again. "When did you meet her? It must have been just after you left... your daughter looks almost fifteen... er... or did you adopt her?"

When he spoke again, Livio's voice was wistful and tired.

"Jasmine, there are some strange things in this world..."

"I know. I know what the children said you could survive. By their graphic retelling of that fight, you should be dead a hundred times over. I heard rumours; they say there is a cult of fighters who can regenerate even if all their body is gone. You're one of those fighters, aren't you?"

Livio gave a non-committal grunt.

"It's called the Eye of Michael, and I was. Vash got me out."

"Ah!" Miss Jasmine sounded delighted.

Vash suddenly felt as though he should not have been listening.

"No, what I have to explain is far stranger."

"Stranger than that?" Miss Jasmine exclaimed in astonishment.

"Yes. My wife, we were married just over two years, and in that time she bore me those two children. She was killed a few days ago, trying to rescue them."

"Oh, Livio, I'm so sorry." Miss Jasmine gasped her voice raw with dismay.

"Jasmine," Livio whispered hoarsely. "She was a plant. Those children, they are plants. They are only two years old."

"You loved her." She said with a gentle acceptance.

Livio breathed out a very relieved sigh, as if he had been worried she would hold this against them.

"It's okay, Livio. Grieve her. You loved her, and that to me is more precious than anything. When the days of your heart become more light than darkness, you can tell me about the good times."

"Huh?" Livio blurted eloquently in astonishment.

Miss Jasmine gave a humming sigh.

"You named your daughter after me. I'd like to hear that story. But you need to grieve, and find your heart again."

She was smiling with a strange serenity as she passed Vash, so wrapped up in her own world that she did not notice him. Vash almost jumped out of his skin when a heavy hand landed on his shoulder. Ow!

"You did not see or hear any of that." Livio growled in his ear.

"No! Nothing!" Vash agreed hurriedly. It was all he could do not to cry with how beautiful it had been. Livio cuffed him lightly across the head and walked out of the church.

"Ow!" He protested.

* * *

The first sun painted the skyline a deep pink and dazzling gold as Meryl sat on her rock outside the church. She had tossed and turned all night and had simply come to the rock after her watch knowing she would not be able to sleep. What she had discovered in the fridge haunted her, but she shoved that to the back of her mind. She had to focus. They were going into madness today. Raiding the Eye of Michael, she felt weak just thinking about it. She was not scared, but it worried her. After the Arc incident with Knives, she and Milly had dug out Wolfwood's file from the greater 'Eye of Michael' records the insurance company had kept. They had slipped a number of things from Bernadelli before it had been reconstituted; some things were best kept quiet. Milly still kept it in her bag. It ranked directly below the 'Report on Tessla' in her personal list of the most dreadful things she had ever read. The report was sketchy and full of speculation, but what had agreed with her assessment of Wolfwood's actions were that they were trained assassins, augmented in some way to enhance their performance. The even sketchier description of their training amounted to indoctrination and torture. She shuddered, wondering how Wolfwood and Livio had survived it. And they thought they could attack a stronghold of such enhanced people. That was madness. Irritated she pushed herself up from the rock and went to find Vash. He would understand.

* * *

Vash gingerly touched the side of his head and slouched down in the pew, his boots resting on the bookrack of the pew in front of him. Livio had smacked him right where one of the thugs had kicked him the day before. Now his bruise really ached. It was so sad and happy at the same time, Miss Jasmine had given Livio a hint at a second chance at happiness. He wished someone would give him a first chance, let alone a second.

"Vash?"

Oh. Ah. Meryl? Where was somewhere to hide?

"Vash, you in here?"

He slipped down on the pew and twisted so that he lay along the hard bench, now invisible to anyone looking in at the door, not that that stopped Meryl.

"Why are you sleeping in the church?"

He opened one eye to find Meryl leaning over him.

"I fell asleep at prayers?" He suggested the first thing that came into his head with a grin.

He was hurt when Meryl coughed to hide her laugh.

"What were you praying about?"

"Private stuff." He said. He felt his cheeks go warm. For a prayer that had not even been a prayer, more like a deeply heartfelt wish, it had been answered with a swiftness that scared him.

She rolled her eyes at him, then leaned against the end of the pew. She crossed her legs, shapely and elegant; he had always thought she had had fantastic legs even when she was annoying him.

Meryl did not know where to start. Vash was staring at the floor by her feet. She wondered how injured he was, he only ever was this passive when seriously hurt. It would be easier to ask her original question than to ask him that now.

"Um, Vash." She curled her foot behind her ankle, and he blinked. "This raid on the Eye of Michael. It's …" going to be painful? He knew that. Going to be deadly? He knew that too. He gazed up at her face now. She met his blue-green eyes, and for a moment felt it, he _knew_ what they were getting into. He stubbornly gazed back at her with that peculiar deep kindness and sorrow. Ah. She knew her answer then, and realised it had never been her decision. She would follow wherever she could to help him.

She bit her lip and shoved down the turmoil inside. She fetched up an indulgent smile.

"You're missing breakfast." She informed him and turned away.

His stomach gave a loud gurgle of delight.

* * *

In between bites of the apple, which was all she could stomach that morning, Meryl sat on the hood of the jeep checking her derringers. She looked up incredulously as Livio walked past whistling. She had never seen him so cheerful.

"Uh, Livio."

He turned on his heel, his hands automatically twitching for the guns he wore at his hips.

"Er. You do know we are going up against the Eye of Michael?"

Livio gave a snort of derisive laughter.

"Don't listen to Lina. They're just Terrans. Stupid Terrans inhabiting a chapterhouse abandoned after the last time I raided the place."

"Are you sure?" Meryl felt the anxiety clutch at her chest.

"Of course!" Livio declared, laughing aloud now. "They foolishly raided the Orphanage, not something the Eye of Michael would do. They took my weapons, again not something the Eye of Michael would do. And they left the Cross Punisher heading Wolfwood's grave. Any Eye of Michael upstart would have taken that, it's a Punisher. There are only thirteen in existence."

"It's that formidable a weapon?" She exclaimed, astonished.

Livio glanced down at her incredulously.

"You've seen Wolfwood wield it, right?" He asked cautiously.

"Oh yes." Meryl nodded, then continued in an aggravated tone. "He and Vash would get caught up in all sorts of skirmishes."

Livio laughed again and lightly patted her head. She icily pushed his hand away, but his smile was too infectious.

"I keep forgetting that. You've only ever seen him in comparison to a plant. Meryl, you cannot imagine what it takes to attain that level of excellence. Nicholas, even though he was a generation behind me in bio-enhancement, was phenomenal. Even at the height of my powers, he bested me." He sighed wistfully then.

Meryl gaped at him.

"You're not taking this seriously at all!" She exclaimed.

"Meryl, oh Meryl." Livio patted her head again and she irritably shoved his hand away. "It will be like kicking a kid armed with a spade. It will be fun watching him try hit me with it a few times before I snatch it away and give him the hiding of his life so he never does it again."

Meryl stared after him as incredulity burned away the last of her anxiety. To see Livio laugh again after he had been in such despair was encouraging. She knew what it was like to gain a small purpose once more, after the greater purpose in her life had vanished. She smiled after the man, quietly hoping he would go from strength to strength. She took a deep breath, she would do her part here, and it would make a difference.


	45. Chapter 45

_**Chapter 45**_

The depthless dark of the citadel stood against the twinkling dark of the night sky. Spires built up from the natural rock formation clawed upwards at the stars as if to trap them. If it was dark outside, it was far darker inside.

"Where's Mister Vash?"

Meryl squinted at a likely darker patch among dark shadows as Milly spoke. Sure enough Vash, who had been following them until a few moments ago, was not there. Abe raised an eyebrow as Meryl let out a half amused, mostly frustrated huff.

"Sounds like he does that often."

"All the time." Milly said with a smile. "He knows just where he needs to be."

Meryl crossed to the window and continued her search of what she could see of the tall buildings from their position in one of the towers. She could tell Livio was not taking it seriously at all. She had expected him to fire the enormous bazooka he had obtained at the front doors. Instead, he had driven from the west, and parked the jeep in an alcove with a small nondescript stone door. He had waved them after him as he produced a key he had stolen on his last visit. Their invasion was overwhelmingly unimpressive. No wonder he had actually laughed at it. Meryl was beginning to feel silly for her dread. It was two in the morning and so far they had made it up to the third floor, though they had all peeled off to go in different directions.

The December chapter of the Eye of Michael was a series of buildings, built partly as a fortress, partly in the echo of old Earth gothic architecture. It was formidable and impressive. Meryl gazed up at the stained glass windows high in the wall above them. The images depicted crosses. She glanced down out of an arrow slit - literally an arrow slit, the mounted crossbow stood on gimbals behind them – as a movement caught her eye. Livio, the kid he had collected, and Calor crossed the courtyard while trying to keep to the shadows.

"I'd have thought he knew the basic rule of sneaking." Abe remarked, irritated. "Don't."

"No time to worry about that, they're being followed." Meryl raised her derringer, this was the first time they had caught a glimpse of any of the inhabitants of the building. Milly put her hand out to stop her.

"No, don't give us away. Mister Abe?"

"Duck, Meryl."

She half turned then dove to the left as Milly dropped to the floor. Abe had loaded the crossbow behind them and with a click of his fingers the spear point became an incandescent fireball. He fired it. It blazed across the courtyard, flaring light over the startled below and hit the water barrel atop the far turret. Meryl stood with her mouth open as the water splashed down and, began to burn. Shouts and alarms sounded and lamps flickered on.

A second thunderous explosion shook their tower. Meryl threw herself away from the arrow slit; she had not expected such swift retaliation.

"Run!" Abe suggested.

"How did you do that?" Meryl demanded as they ended up two floors down, huddled behind a wall buttress as people in states of half dress and bristling arms ran past. She could not tell if they were Terrans or No Man's Land people working for them.

"Aw, it's an old trick, don't they have napalm here?"

Meryl considered all the awful ways she had seen people die. Starvation, disease and shot wounds were bad, but that allowed a completely new level of nastiness.

"Now they do." She grumbled, what bothered her most was that he had contaminated the water.

* * *

Vash ran along the passage, he had just happened to glance out of the window and had seen another small group of people follow them in to the cold dark buildings of the Eye of Michael. He felt a shadow of fear trickle down his spine. Who else would have known about that door? Livio had assured them that it was kept locked. He had also locked it behind him, which meant, there was something else afoot tonight. He was a floor above the courtyard when the water tank exploded and splashed blazing water everywhere. He turned away, sickened; the shrieks of agony were brief and telling. No. He could not meet up with Livio to warn him, it would be a miracle if he reached his destination with this chaos. He had to find out who the others were. He headed downstairs, his pace a swift lope.

The next turn brought him into collision course with armed fighters. He scrambled for his as he ran gun, but they flowed around him as if he were no more than a light annoyance and vanished around the corner. Vash clutched his revolver and stared after them with a mixture of disbelief and relief. Some glanced at him as he sprinted past. Some he was sure recognised him by the half stumble they did as they stared in astonishment. He hastily backtracked and peered around the corner after the people who had just run past him. They _were_ Eye of Michael. He drew his head back and stood against the stone wall his heart pounding. There was no mistaking the cross motif on their clothing and weapons. Just what was going on here? Were they allied with the Terrans? They had not confronted him, so probably not. They had run on, and left him. Even with the price on his head. They had some other directive then. He glanced back staring after them as they ran almost silently around the corner. He really needed to warn Livio, no, Livio could take care of himself. He had to get to the kids.

* * *

Livio was seething as he sprinted down the passage, the boy Bill on his heels. Calor certainly had her wits about her, better than he did. He was not usually so sloppy as to let an ambush startle him. Through his fury he worried he was out of practice, or was age creeping up on him? She had grabbed the boy by the collar and had hauled him twenty yarz before he could run on his own. The water tower had just exploded. That would be Abe, but he thought he had made it clear to the trigger-happy plant that the diversion was to happen long after they had infiltrated the labs. Something must have happened. The second explosion had not come from the courtyard, but somewhere near the front doors. Who was there? None of their party would have gone down to the doors. He hesitated and grimaced, he had not counted the trouble Vash could draw. He should have insisted the plant stayed with him. He jumpily sniffed the air. Abe's inadvertent warning was wake up call. There were others here, and not only of the Terrans and their own party. He could sense them; there was no mistaking it, a deadly intent. There was at least one Punisher wielder still here. Livio took his guns and let himself sink into the deeper awareness. It took a moment of deep breaths he was so out of practice. He swore he would never let himself get so lax again, what had he been thinking? If the Punisher wielder was with the Terran's he would be guarding whatever they thought the heart of the raid would be. In this case, the children. Going up against a renegade Punisher wielder with his double fangs, well that would just be the beginning of the fun. If the Punisher wielder really was with the Eye of Michael, well, that was not worth thinking about.

They ducked and dodged through the people who swarmed the passages. The labs they found were guarded, but not to the extent that Livio could not handle. After a brief almost one-sided fight, he tied up the guards and dragged them inside the first set of doors to hide them. He was mindful of Vash and his philosophy. However, if he discovered what he expected to discover behind the doors, it would also be good to have someone to kick around for answers. It had been worryingly easy. Where was the Punisher wielder if not here? Livio could not sense him anywhere near. He had a brief fight with his conscience. He was here for the kids, not for the glory of the fight. He clenched his fist. He had a mission, and regardless of the interference, he would fulfil it. He was not going to let some alluringly powerful upstart distract him.

He put his hand on Bill's head.

"Stand guard here." He murmured. "If they wake up, come call me. If someone comes through those doors, don't try fight them. Just run as fast as you can and call me. They will kill you easier than spitting at you. Get it? Call me if anything happens."

"Aaawwww…" Bill began then caught the expression on Livio's face and shut up. He scowled after them as they continued into the labs.

"That bad?" Calor murmured.

"I know what they did to me." Livio whispered as they walked through a second set of doors. "And they have become more sophisticated since the Terran's arrived. Probably worse."

The smell hit him, jolting him back so hard he had to shake his head to clear it. For a moment he was a terrified, yet defiant fourteen year old, who wanted nothing more than to break things. People preferably. He stifled a gasp. The disinfectant, with a faint scent of blood, and the strong chemicals they used. Nothing had changed.

Livio stood at the railing at the top of the stairs overlooking the room. On gurneys surrounded by tubes and pipes and monitoring equipment lay too many young faces he recognised. He grabbed Calor as she made to hurry down the stairs.

"Ah, so you have some sense of caution."

Livio raised his eyes to the man who walked down the passage towards them. Livio felt a shiver flash through his body. He had last seen that man at the Eye of Michael Headquarters what felt like so many years ago. Keeping Calor behind him, Livio walked down the stairs to meet him. There were other medical staff in the room, but after briefly glancing at them, ignored them.

"Doctor Kelvogh." Livio spoke as the name slowly came back to him. The man was greyer around the temples and gaunter in the face, but he was the same man. So much for the Terrans not being part of the Eye of Michael. That tiny girl Meryl had been right to question it.

"I see you no longer wear your third arm, was the connection giving you difficulty?"

"No." Livio said, the connection was still there, only it had been a few years since he had fought with it. He had never fought with it without Razlo's complete override of his mind. He had never wanted it until now, with that powerful Punisher wielder around. He had to fight an almost overwhelming desire to confront them – such a fight would be worthy of his skill. He forced himself to focus; the wielder was somewhat distant still. Lesser questions crowded his mind. What were they guarding? What exactly had they landed in?

"They tell me the citadel is under attack, is that your doing?"

"Perhaps." Livio said with bleak calm. "These children, how long before you can release them from treatment?"

"Ah. So this is a rescue attempt." Kelvogh murmured. "You are angry, but not yet so angry that you would destroy them."

Livio gave him a very flat stare and Kelvogh shrugged uninitiated.

"A week? You understand we have to wean them off the drugs, were you to simply take them they would die. Better to leave them with us."

"Is that how it is done now, without testing them, or rating their endurance with training, you throw them in to the advancement program?"

Kelvogh shrugged.

"You and I, we're of the old school. They tested you, and tried you and found you could handle it. They knew not to waste potential. But the new bosses? They don't understand that a few months of observation and training can make a potential subject into a good one. We had to knock this lot out with sedatives. They kept telling us that the angel man Vash the Stampede would come for us."

Kelvogh turned from gazing at the children and glanced quizzically up at Livio.

"He's here, isn't he? I'd heard you'd been running with the wrong crowd."

Livio shrugged. He wanted to ask Kelvogh who he was working for, but that would reveal too much ignorance on his behalf.

"Calor, go to the door and see that no one gets in. If you do see Vash, tell him to get down here we need to talk."

"He's on his way." Calor said. "What are you going to do?"

Livio stared out at the rows of gurneys as fear, fury and anguish flooded over him.

"Wait for him."

* * *

Vash leaped over the railing and strode across the floor to where Livio stood watching the doctors go about their work.

"W-who did this?" Vash breathed his pale eyes wide.

"These people here." Livio murmured. "We have a problem."

Vash stepped back and dipped his head so he could hear Livio.

"We do?" He could not sense any snipers nearby.

"They will need a week of care to heal from whatever was done to them and to ensure that they survive the withdrawal process. We'll have to leave them here."

Vash put his hand over his mouth and stared out at children.

"Doctor Kelvogh will see to it, I have explained matters. But he's Eye of Michael, he'll need a directive from the bosses to do anything. Let's go and do some convincing elsewhere."

Vash smiled slowly, and spoke in an undertone.

"I ran into the Eye of Michael earlier. I thought this place was Terran."

"There's a Punisher wielder out there." Livio confided. "Vash, I swear I cleared out this place."

Vash smiled then.

"They didn't attack me. I don't think they're here for that."

Livio stared at Vash.

"What is going on?"

Vash shrugged as Livio looked past him with a picture of horror on his face.

"What the hell do you mean bringing Miss Jasmine in here? She was supposed to stay with the car!" He hissed furiously at Vash in a single breath.

Vash gave him a hurt look.

"I thought she would want to see the children."

In desperation Livio clawed his hand through his hair, knocking his hat off to hang around his neck. She was to have been their getaway driver. Lina was also peering around the doors now. She was a natural sniper, what was she doing trying for close range fighting? And where in all this mess was ZT? Where did his allegiance lie with the Eye of Michael? He jammed his hat back on his head in a now towering fury. That was it. He was sick of indecision.

"Keep an eye on the kids!" He told Vash as Lina and Miss Jasmine walked down the stairs, their eyes wide, their expressions shocked. He was not sure Vash heard as he hurried over to the ladies as if he were worried about them.

.

Livio slipped away. He could not stand to do nothing any longer. He gave Bill the hairy eyeball and the boy grudgingly remained with the unconscious guards. He stepped out of the doors into the passage as he took up his guns. A group of people faltered in their steps towards the doors. Livio smiled slightly and his frustration turned to calm like that before a storm. He knew these people.

"Doublefang?" An incredulous exclamation by a solidly built, yet hunched cyborg startled him from his silent battle preparations. "They said you were killed by Elendria!"

Livio choked indignantly. Elendria the Crimson Nail had been one of his greatest foes, yet not so great.

"You will find it was the other way round." He growled.

"Is that the way of things?" Another man demanded. His name was Carbine, if Livio recalled correctly. He was short, stocky and bristled with weapons. "Is it you running this mockery of a chapter house?"

Livio delivered a flat glare of hatred.

"Again, you are mistaken. If you bothered to ever read the news sheets they circulate, I cleared this place out two years back."

They stared at each other. The hunched cyborg scratched at the seam where his flesh joined the metal. Livio was having trouble remembering his name, they had called him Gorilla behind his back, and that was all he recalled.

"Then what exactly are you doing here?"

Livio gaped at him in bewilderment, he had the exact same question for them.

It was then that a group of Terrans barreled around the corner.

"Invaders!"

Livio found himself returning fire along with the Eye of Michael.

"You're not with them?" The cyborg shouted over the Terran's noisy sendoff.

"No! Is Doctor Kelvogh working for you?" He yelled back.

"No! Sold out to the Terrans a year back. The council wants him back, alive. They are very unhappy with him selling secrets."

Livio found he could breathe again. They would not shoot the doctor on sight. He had to somehow find a way to gain the children a week.

"Who carries the Punisher?" He asked, that would be the fight to settle his nerves.

The cyborg grinned gap toothed.

"He's nothing for the likes of us. Let him do his hunting and we'll stick to putting holes in Terrans."

Livio realized what had not been said. The man with the Punisher was not hunting Terrans. What was the purpose of their presence here? Livio felt a deep calm descend. He would leave Vash to defend the children. He would welcome this fight.

* * *

Meryl leaned against the wall breathing hard. Her chest still hurt when she overexerted herself. But tonight she ignored it. All the dodging people running to and fro around the citadel. She could not tell who was who, but realised after a bewildered conference with Milly and Abe that there were at least two other groups here aside from themselves. She hadn't been able to tell if they were Terran or from No Man's Land. They had just taken to hiding from everyone. It had been exhausting. They had just unlocked a room where children huddled. None of them looked older than eight. She stared at them, bewildered and sickened, only half of them were the children they knew from the orphanage outside December. Where were the others? Milly walked in to cajole them to their feet. But they were all watching Abe with wide eyed fear.

"Uh, Mister Abe, would you guard the passage?" Milly said and pushed him out. This did not make the children very willing to leave the room. Milly stuck her head out the door.

"Abe go ahead of us and clear the way!" She called, then turned brightly to the children. "I know there are scary people outside, but that man there is much scarier. He protected us getting here. He'll get us out."

Meryl had to carry one of the boys who just sat there not even seeming to see what was around him. Milly held the hands of three children, the others followed once she told them to line up in pairs. They made it down to the gate where Livio had let them in, to find Abe holding the door with a broad grin on his face.

"Have a look who's here!" He declared.

Meryl was astonished to find Zachery Thompson sitting in Lina's truck beside their own vehicles. There were several other people she remembered from September with him, all armed and milling around the cars as if they had just arrived. Mutare grinned at her from where he waited in their jeep.

"Looks like everyone wanted a moonless night for the raid on this place."

"Get them back to the orphanage." Meryl handed the children over to Mutare. "I think there must be more inside, as these are only half of Livio's lot."

Milly hesitated at the door and caught her brother's eye. She knew that expression. He was here on business and did not want her to become part of it. She did not look at him again, the children needed her help. Abe drew her and Meryl back into the building and cast a dark look at the group outside.

"They're here for a fight." He urged them to a steady lope through the dark halls. "They're not in any mood to give quarter. Let's find the rest of the kids before they're caught in the crossfire."

"I'll tell Calor we've found half!" Milly said, grateful she could do something in such a tense situation.

* * *

Livio let the Eye of Michael warriors run on ahead and slipped down another passage to check doors. These rooms had been recently used as lodgings. But aside from abandoned scraps like the odd sock or empty shells, they were empty of any telling evidence. Anxiety fuelling his rage, Livio returned to the hospital. Bill jumped and almost shot him as he came through the doors. Livio easily brushed the gun out of the way and put his hand on the boy's shoulder to indicate no harm done. Bill sank back against the wall almost cross-eyed with relief. The guards were waking up. Time to move on. He stepped into the ward to as Calor was talking on a radio she carried.

"Milly's just radioed through that they've found a group of kids and are busy evacuating them as we speak." She grinned maliciously. "They have Abe with them; the Eye of Michael will be lucky if any buildings are left standing after he's been through them."

Livio glanced at Calor, and the rag tag group that had followed Jasmine.

"Bill, see you stick with Miss Jasmine. She'll need your protection."

The boy nodded and hefted the gun. Miss Jasmine gave Livio a stare that promised dismemberment if they lived through the night for having armed Bill. Ah. Very much time to leave.

"Calor, see you tie these guards up before they give you any trouble." He instructed her quietly and left before anyone could protest.

He had passed two corners before he realised he had Vash on his tail. He waited and grabbed the irritating plant as he rounded the corner. Vash yelped, then grinned at him and settled himself rather comfortably against the wall. Livio's fist itched to hit him, how could he be so calm, and smile in a situation like this.

"Vash, we have the real Eye of Michael here, with a Punisher wielder. They are not your regular thugs. If quarter of the Terrans live through the night that will be too many."

"I know the Eye of Michael." Vash said quietly.

Of course he did.

"ZT's not here as your friend Vash. If they order it, he'll take their side over yours. He serves your brother."

"I know."

"Your Fifth Moon group is not popular with Johnston's Terrans or the Eye of Michael. They published stuff Knives wanted secret. Independent plant stuff. If he gets Meryl its tickets."

Vash gave him a very bleak stare. Livio winced. Vash knew and he was going to stubbornly stick like a bur to his side.

"Vash, get lost!" Livio said without the heat he had before, then gave up and ran.

"Where are we going?"

"I'm not telling you."

"Those stairs lead up to the grand council chambers."

Livio missed as step and grabbed the wall as he stumbled a few stairs upwards before he regained his balance. There was something wrong if he was so clumsy in such a situation.

"We just came from there."

"What happened?" Livio asked, taking the stairs at a run.

"Nothing." Vash shrugged as Livio had to throw his hands out in front of him to prevent himself running into the portcullis that were drawn across the passage. The hall beyond was empty. One wall was an arcade, open to the sky, with a drop of over a hundred feet to the rough ground below. It offered a grand view across the two hundred yarz of canyon to the central keep of the citedal.

"You trapped them?"

"No. They locked us out. Lina shot three of them before the others did this. Calor and I arrived too late. They retreated across the retractable bridge."

Livio stared at him feeling his stomach sink. He had forgotten that the central keep of the citadel was so well defended.

He clutched at the bars of the portcullis and rested his forehead against it. Even if they could break through this, they could not cross the distance. His hands shook. He knew then that he was a mess. It was a lack of intensive training. He was getting older, and he had no idea what cost the modifications would take from of his lifespan. But worse than physical ills, his heart hurt. How had he allowed himself to hope he could rescue his twins this night?

Vash put his hand on his shoulder. Livio flinched, knowing Vash must feel how he shook.

"We've got them trapped for the moment. Hopefully we can keep it that way for a while."

Livio blinked. What did that have to do with anything? He did not know the last time he had slept. Oh yes, he did know, the night Chronica had died. He had slept with her in his arms. And their unborn child. Livio clung to the bars gasping for breath as the agony bored through his body. Nothing in his entire wretched life had prepared him for this sort of pain.

"Livio." Vash murmured from what sounded a long way away. "We'll need to guard the hospital, and you'll need to monitor the dosage reduction. No one else here knows anything about how the drugs work."

Numbly Livio nodded. Yes, he could do something. He followed Vash. He wanted to tear the entire citadel apart, but had to wait on the children. He felt Razlo stir, but oddly not leap into action as he usually did when he was so devastated. That central keep. He wondered what they hid there. He had never been there. There were some places only the council went – but these Terrans? Perhaps they would use it to protect themselves like the cowards they were. As they walked he realised that that there were no windows looking out over it. The place could not easily be besieged. But what of the Punisher wielder? Ah, so perhaps that was his destination. Those damned Terrans were up to no good, there was something deeply important there.

.

Livio slung his double fangs in their holsters and stood against the wall beside the hospital. How had he come to be standing there? He was in no state to be doing anything. He felt rather mortified that Vash had noticed and had placed him here, ostensibly as guard. Calor had escorted Miss Jasmine and Lina to the exit, along with Bill. Vash had gone with them.

Livio looked up twitchily as Calor had returned with Mutare, under the guard of a skittish group of the Eye of Michael. They were all apparently aware that they were escorting plants exponentially more powerful than they were. Livio wondered what in the world Calor had done to cow them.

"See!" Calor pointed at Livio. "I'm with Livio. Him!"

"Oi, Doublefang? These Plants say they are with Fifth Moon, are you with them?"

Livio managed an irritated glare.

"I hired them to do some Terran arse kicking, let them get on with their work."

Calor opened her mouth to protest but Mutare stood on her foot.

"Let us go and explain to our friend Abe he doesn't need to nail any more of your folk to the wall and we'll work together to do that to these Terran's, eh?"

The members of the Eye of Michael let Calor and Mutare walk back the way they had come. Livio pushed himself away from the wall, suddenly feeling his interest engage again. Abe nail people to the wall? This he had to see.

The scene in the hall below was carnage. For a moment Livio felt panic sluice through him, before he realised they had all been shot twice. Once for death, twice for surety. Any more on a cleansing raid the Eye of Michael regarded as a waste of bullets. This side there were mostly dead Terrans, yet on the far side were three dead wearing the distinctive tags of the Eye of Michael. And on each wall were nailed, literally, the rest of the people who had been involved in the mêlée. They were all alive, and their gun barrels served as the nails holding them onto the walls. Abe stood against the far doors, his arms folded. He raised his head, his eyes blazing blue. Livio blinked, the man had had brown eyes before.

"They tried to shoot Milly." Abe said by way of explanation.

Livio turned to the group crowded behind him, reminded starkly of intervening in a fight at the orphanage over something stupid like the rights to play with certain toys. He banged heads together there, and wanted to do it now. Only he was sure he would end up stuck to the wall if he tried it with Abe.

"Carbine!" He barked. "Have you seen Gorilla guts?"

There were several smothered grins among the Eye of Michael.

"We last saw Tarq on the third floor trying to get into the council rooms. His arm has an arc torch attachment."

"Inform him, and inform anyone else you happen to know, that these idiots here tried to harm ZT's baby sister."

There was a special silence known only by those who know the doom hanging over their heads. They slunk away, arrogantly, but with alacrity. Calor shrugged and walked off with Mutare, leaving him to deal with Abe. Livio thought that was horrendously unfair. She was Abe's superior in among the Terrans, but here, Livio supposed, Abe outranked her in the Fifth Moon organisation. What did one say to a homicidal plant? The way the rage burned in Abe's eyes reminded him far too much of Knives. One did not ever show fear, that much Livio knew. It then struck him that none of the pinned people were dead, and the significance of that.

"We'd best let the hospital know this lot is here." Livio said and patted Abe on the shoulder as he reached past and pushed the doors open behind him.

Abe gave a grunt and followed him.

Milly stumbled back as the doors opened and Abe dodged a stun gun claw as she fired it at him.

"I can look after myself!" She sobbed at him.

Abe deflected a second blow and caught Milly in a hug.

"You're safe, Milly girl. Livio talked the fear of death into them."

Livio opened his mouth to say it had been Abe's demonstration that had quelled them, but the Plant levelled him a look and he bit his words back. No need to aggravate Abe any further. Also Milly was going to pieces. He was suddenly furious; he was too tired to deal with this.

"She can ride back with the next group and get some rest." He suggested what he very much wanted to do himself. It didn't look like Abe was thinking too clearly. "I'll let the hospital know to look here on the way back."

Milly hiccupped as she followed Abe across the room; he was trying to shield her from the scene in the far hall.

"You didn't kill them?" She asked, sobbing and hiccupping so hard it was difficult to make out her words.

"Of course not!" Abe protested. "You think I want His Royal Whiny-Arse on my head about that all over again?"

Milly gave a hiccupping sob of a laugh.

Livio grinned all the way back to the hospital, trying to think of a way to inform Vash of his new nickname, or better still use it to his face.


	46. Chapter 46

**_Chapter 46_**

The Orphanage was overflowing. They had packed the kids four to a bed, and even then some had to sleep on the floor. The way the children told it, they had been kidnapped from cities and towns from Lost July to December. Most of them were orphans, or estranged from their parents by the recent wars. Some were too young to remember their hometowns, but remembered with fervour the towns where their orphanages had been.

The first sun was setting as Meryl climbed into the jeep. She watched as Mutare walked wearily back to the orphanage kitchen with the others who had just come off shift. The plant already had three children trailing him, keen for the stories he told. They had split their team in half, she had returned to the Orphanage, along with Abe, Calor, Milly and Miss Jasmine. They had slept through the day while those who had the strength after the raid had watched the inner Keep, or in Livio's case guard the hospital.

.

Abe drove them out back towards the citadel. The Eye of Michael ignored them. Possibly Abe's object lesson made them keep their distance, the deed had certainly surprised Meryl. However, she recalled what the newspapers had reported about the plant before they had known him, he had been holding back. Some of the children had already woken to consciousness and Livio had packed them off to the orphanage with doses of medication to take for the next few days. But there were still seven left, and Livio watched and guarded them like a nesting toma hen. Meryl bit her lip as a smile caught at the edges of her mouth. She would not air that thought around him. Especially since he could become a rabid hound at a moment's notice.

They climbed the stairs to their command centre in the tall gothic church. Zachery waited for them there; the others were still at their posts. Meryl glanced at Milly, wondering what alliance kept him there. Was he with the Eye of Michael, or was it Lina he was guarding?

"Good, everyone is here." Zachery said as if he had been expecting desertions. He rattled off their names, assigning them their posts and who they would be relieving. It had been chaotic after Abe's object lesson the night before until Zachery had irritably come to discover what was happening. Ruling out Abe as unstable and Livio as distracted, he had taken charge.

He had assigned people to regular shifts and had ordered all those not on shift back to the orphanage so they could maintain the protection there, and get some sleep. He had simply assimilated Fifth Moon into his roster as if he expected them to keep up with the stamina of those trained by the Eye of Michael. The Terrans left in the outer citadel had either been killed or rounded up. None of them knew anything about what was in the central keep, nor did they know if Johnston was still in there.

"Meryl, you're assigned to the tower. Vash asked that you watch the keep tonight."

Meryl stared at Zachery, feeling her chest constrict. She was relieving Vash? She watched Zachery's face for any sign that he knew anything, but he looked right past her and spoke to Milly assigning her to the front gate with Abe.

.

Vash the Stampede stood against one of the pillars of the great bell tower above the church. From here he could see for iles, if one was fascinated by sand and rocks and the way the suns threw shadows. It was cold now that the second sun had set. He had seen the jeep arrive, and his stomach grumbled. He hoped there was something good for dinner. Lunch had been untold hours ago.

He paced restlessly across the platform, then sat on the low wall of the bell tower arch and watched the keep. The only interesting thing that had happened was that he had seen a light in one of the lower windows last night. He kept glancing down to see if he could catch a glimpse again.

He heard a noise and turned to check. Meryl walked up the many stairs up to the top of tower, her hands chafing her arms to keep warm. Her persistence through fear fascinated him. She was so small, and so helpless, yet she fought with all she could and not in ways he expected of her. She often surprised him with her audacity or sheer contrary nature. There was something of Knives's harsh nature in her, determined against all odds to get something done. However, she did not have his wit, or his arrogance. She hid her vulnerabilities as fiercely as he did though. In some ways, too, she had Rem's insight and strict but gentle nature. Sometimes just her being there was all he needed. Oh man, he could not do this! He breathed out. Yes, yes, he could. He just had to not think of reasons why he liked her. That only made him awkwardly aware of himself. They could not continue as they were, it would be a relief to have it ended. Vash took a deep breath and stared out at the keep as he breathed out, the windows were still dark.

.

Meryl folded her arms around herself as she walked the last few steps up to the bell chamber. He was never one to ask such favours. She wondered why he had called her up there. She took a deep breath at the door, no, she knew why. And she was surprised he had snapped first, they could both feel the awkwardness and perhaps he had decided to do something about it.

She peered in to find him sitting on the low wall in the moonlight, staring out at the starry skies. He glanced up as she stepped into the room, his eyes sadder and calmer than usual. She had planned to walk over and sit beside him, but his expression eliminated that idea. She casually walked over to the steps on the side of the room that lead up to the bell gantry above them and sat down on the bottom one.

"Hello." She smiled, at least she could begin this well.

.

Vash watched as Meryl seated herself on the step. She put her arms around her knees and smiled at him. He had never seen such a defensive smile. She was so full of fear, yet she was there. He faltered for a moment, wondering if he were doing the right thing. He had no precedent for this and his default in all other relationship matters was to trust openly and work as hard as he could to rekindle the other person's heart to hope.

This was different.

He wished then that his fate had been different, that Rem had lived. Though he knew that was foolish, because even if she had, she would not have lived beyond the lifespan of a regular human. It was just that, right now, he wanted to sit beside her and ask her the simple and horribly complex question of how to deal with love. It wasn't the silly infatuations he knew and could entertain and ignore at whim. No, this had gravitas and power and scared him silly. He had called Meryl up here to talk about it and now, now, he did not even know where to start.

.

Meryl watched him as he shifted where he sat. He had such long arms and legs that he always seemed gangly when sitting. He fidgeted on his perch on the wall; his eyes flickered around the room as if seeking inspiration. He scratched at his neck and grinned sheepishly at her.

She relaxed slightly, ah; there was the Vash she knew.

"Ah- I'm sure you know, but I'm not as young as I look." He said lightly.

She raised an eyebrow. What was that supposed to mean? He mistook her expression for some sort of criticism as he babbled on.

"Not that I'm not spritely and enthusiastic, but, but I'm, er..."

"One hundred and fifty six years, give or take." Meryl concluded. She propped her elbow on her knee and rested her chin in her hand. She tried to remain calm for his sake. He had something to say and she was determined to find out what it was. This rambling talk was not helping.

"Aaahh. Yeah." He finished lamely. He seemed to be confused. She knew a quick way to break him out of his more helpless moments and her remark tumbled off her tongue before she could censor it.

"And this is supposed to impress me, considering you act younger than you look?"

"H-hey." He protested.

She laughed silently, it had worked better than she had imagined, he was now pouting and that old stubborn expression was creeping up on him. He always did better in a more defensive mode.

"You have a youthful soul." She complimented him, feeling a little bad for her insult. He was so easy to insult, the way he left himself wide open like that. He would never have survived in her neighbourhood growing up. She watched, as the compliment seemed to confuse him once more. He blinked as if trying to remember exactly what he had wanted to say.

.

Vash fidgeted. Meryl was very distracting the way she sat there with her lavender eyes and her small hand curled up against her cheek. This was not going nearly as well as it had in his head during his watch. Right now he could not remember what he wanted to say, or rather he could. The problem was there were hundreds of things he wanted to say and he could not pick one.

.

"Vash?" Meryl murmured, taking pity on what was clearly an internal struggle of some sort. "Did you have any friends as a kid, aside from your brother?"

"Huh?" Vash blinked at her. "Er, well, no. There was just Rem, Knives and me."

Ah, so he had never learned to build close personal defences against others in childhood.

"Is that why you play with kids so much?" Meryl bit her tongue, why did she always say the wrong thing? There were other ways to ask such questions.

Vash grinned suddenly.

"I like kids. They're the hope for this world."

"You don't mind not having had friends as a kid?"

His eyes widened, as he seemed to understand her angle of questioning. To her surprise he laughed.

"A- are you worried I was lonely as a child?"

Now that he put it that way, what _had_ she been asking? She had thought he had been compensating for something.

"Er, maybe?" She shrugged uncomfortably.

To her astonishment, he pushed himself to his feet and came to crouch down in front of her.

"I had Knives. He was my best friend." The way he smiled broke Meryl's heart. She knew from rumour and personal witness what his brother had done to him. Another thought then occurred to her. She wished he would not smile so happily over such pain. But before she could ask if his childhood was like the twins, where they grew so fast in the first few years, he asked one of his own.

"Were you lonely as a child?"

"No!" She exclaimed. "What kind of question is that?"

She caught his steady gaze and looked down. How was it that he always caught her lies?

To her astonishment, he sat down beside her on the step and folded his arms across his knees. He stared out over the keep they were to watch.

"I think it is harder for humans." He said quietly. "I learned early that I am a plant, and that would always set me apart from humans. But I had my brother, and we walked a lifetime together. We might have disagreed on many things, but we always had each other's back."

"A lifetime?" Meryl tried to work out what he meant.

"Seventy years, give or take."

She stared at him.

"I thought you lost track of your brother in childhood." She murmured.

"I did. But I never abandoned him. Circumstances made it that he abandoned me. He's been running away from me ever since." Vash grinned at that.

"It's not funny." She could see the hurt behind his eyes.

"Oh, it is." Vash said quietly. "And it is all the funnier for him not knowing that is what he's been doing all these years."

He was still smiling. She could not take the lie any longer.

"What circumstances?" She asked, grumpily.

He raised his left arm and flexed the prosthetic.

She stared.

"You lost your arm to your _brother_?"

"I shot him first; you could say it was retaliation."

She stared at him with her mouth open, unable to voice her astonishment and horror.

.

Vash tucked his prosthetic arm under his real one and rested them on his knees. He felt oddly vulnerable, having shared that with her. It was so different, having a common understanding with Knives, a battle forged friendship with Wolfwood, and now this confusing, all encompassing, bewilderment he shared with Meryl. He knew all about Milly's family from even before he had met them, she talked about them whenever she could. However, even after several years, he had only discovered that Meryl had an uncle because he had interrupted them packing her flat. She played her cards closer to her chest than he did. It was more than a little intriguing.

"Do you have any brothers and sisters?"

She stopped staring at him. Her pale eyes darted to the night skies outside the window.

"No." She said with an odd catch to her voice.

"Oh." Yep, he had put his foot right in it now. "Er. I'm sorry for their passing."

Meryl clenched her hands together.

"My mum and my brother passed away twelve years ago. My dad died three months ago. It's just me and my uncle now."

Twelve years ago. He felt as though he had been punched in the stomach. Twelve years ago. Twelve years. Twelve years ago, he had destroyed July.

"Er." He breathed wretchedly.

"Yes." Meryl said softly.

To his surprise, she put her hand over his.

"Vash, I didn't want to tell you this, because I know how awful the memory of July is for you."

"I'm sorry." It came out like a breath, almost inaudible over the agony that gripped at his chest. He could not stop the tears now. _Her_ family. He had known so many people he had lost in July, but he had never expected this. He felt physically sick.

"Vash!" She called to him. He gently tugged his hand away from hers, utterly ashamed. How could he ever dare to ask for forgiveness for this? He cupped his face with his hands like blinkers; he could not look at her now. He stared out at the dark keep.

.

Meryl watched as he hunched over and hid his face. She could already feel the distance between them, where a moment ago there had been a connection. She clenched her fists in desperation. There had to be some way to call him back. She gingerly patted him on the back. She never knew where it was safe to touch him, with all the scars and bruises he carried. A guilty little voice reminded her that she never considered those when she slapped him. He sat with his shoulders shaking, was he crying that he hid his face? He was too far-gone for any touch of hers to work, she mused regretfully. Especially after she had abused it all these years. She took a deep breath; this was not going to be pretty.

"Vash." She spoke, not expecting him to respond. "Twelve years ago, my mother was kidnapped by a gang that traded body parts. My brother went to rescue her and they killed him and sent his head back to us saying I was next. My father shipped me out on the next steamer to my uncle's place near December. I only heard what happened next from my uncle. My father apparently got a posse to help him blow up the factory where they were holding the people, but they could not find my mother. The Feds got involved and called my father an arsonist for his actions. He escaped jail and went on the lam, searching for my mother. He infiltrated the gangs organ chop shop found her in a holding cell, utterly insane and with some of her organs taken. The gang members found him there, but he managed to escape into the desert. He says he was sitting on a rock, trying to think of how to get back in to rescue my mother when the sky over July lit up like a million suns were burning. After the explosion, he joined those who came to dig through the city. When he reached the factory where they had held my mother, he stole away her body. The coroner's report says that her body was missing a lung, liver, both kidneys and her uterus and that the swift death was a mercy to the agony they had left her to endure. My father always toasted your health on the eve of every July the twenty first."

She sat with her hands clenched together. It had all come out in a rush. She had never spoken of this to anyone. She did not need their pity. She would never have told Vash if it were not for the complicated reason that she wanted to somehow thank him for the disaster that was July. That in itself was despicable, yet, what was it her uncle called it? A cruel mercy.

.

Vash reached out and put his arm around her without thinking. It was his prosthetic arm as she sat to his left. Meryl stiffened as he did so, then saw the sorrow in his eyes.

"I'm sorry that happened to your family."

She nodded her thanks, unable to speak. After a few deep breaths, she found her voice a horse whisper.

"I'm sorry for what happened to yours." She replied, feeling she had to say something.

Vash blinked with confusion.

"Wha- what do you know about my family?" He asked curiously.

"Only what I've pieced together. You keep a lot of secrets, Vash the Stampede."

He grinned mischievously at that. She was surprised he did not crack a joke and make some excuse to leave. Encouraged, she continued.

"Your brother altered the ships course and crashed us on this planet. Rem, your foster mother, tried to save you all, but died in the attempt. You've been trying to protect the world since."

Vash had turned to stare out at the stars at the mention of Rem's name.

"I know what was in that ship near May City. Why do you think we detoured past it? But you did not want to talk so I left it. That was your old home. Milly and I speculated what must have happened with that medical lab door burned out like that."

Vash withdrew his arm and hugged himself across the stomach.

Meryl lightly rubbed her hand across his back. He did not look at her. She could feel his body armour underneath his coat.

"I've been thinking." She said quietly. "I've not understood you very well, and I'm sorry. I only realise now how important it is to you that you are a plant. I never thought race a distinctive thing, but to you it is. When you have been hurt as badly as you have because of it, it remains a sensitive thing in your heart. You have forgiven humans, and have fought to protect humans, yet it is precisely because you are a plant that you do this."

She sighed softly to herself, this was the inevitable end of things, but not in a way she had wished.

.

Vash sat with his gut churning. He had not anticipated this. He had not called her hear to talk of such deep sorrow and devastation. She knew. He had known that she knew. Although how she had discovered Tessla's remains, or why she had gone to such lengths to allow him to bury them, he did not know. Now she was rubbing his back in a manner that made his skin want to crawl away from the sensation. He liked it, yet at the same time could not tolerate how close she was. It made him feel too vulnerable for his own sanity. Yet, when he had called her here, her touch was what he had been prepared to deny himself, why did he crave it so deeply? He was so confused that he could not think of even a witty remark to escape her.

.

"Vash, I cannot make up for what you have lost. I know I bring you more irritation than joy. I have horribly compromised your safety on this world, and I am sorry. I, I set up Fifth Moon to help plants, so I could help you. So you don't have to do your work in this world alone. I want to thank you for being patient with Milly and I and letting us learn who you were, even if it hurt you further. Um." She fidgeted with her hands. "I suppose, what I am trying to say, is that we care about you. Sorry if we've got things wrong. Vash, despite the mess I've made, I'd still like to be friends."

There was a silence.

"I wish I had recorded that!" Vash said with a grin.

Meryl slapped him across the arm before she remembered that it was his prosthetic, and that she had promised herself that she would not slap him. She clutched her hand in agony while Vash laughed.

"I was being sincere!" She spat furiously at him.

"I know." He grinned. She glared at the teasing lilt in his tone and the mischief in his eyes.

"Oooh!" She leaped up, her cloak flaring out as she stormed to the top of the stairs. She then realised it was her watch shift and she was stuck up here.

"You. You-" She breathed out, clawing her hand at the air, unable to express her frustration.

"Meryl." He said calmly. "Don't lie to me."

She stared at him in bewilderment.

"Please."

She opened and closed her mouth a few times. Lie to him? What was he talking about? She had not lied! She had spoken the truth the whole time. Everything had been straight from her heart! Had he any idea how hard it had been? And he had the gall to say that. She was still chewing on frustration and indignation when he swiftly stood and crossed the room to the top of the stairs where she stood. He leaned over and looked at her.

"I did not _lie_ , Vash the Stampede!" She hissed at him. He was close enough for her to give him an excellent slap across his face. She clutched the edge of her cloak in her fist. She would not hit him. She was stronger than that. She clenched her teeth, trying to remember exactly why she was determined not to hit him.

"You did." He smiled. There was a bright spark of amusement and mischief in his green eyes. She closed her other hand around the thick material of his coat, drawing him closer to scold him if she could remember the words she wanted to say with him mesmerising her like that. She gave an indignant gasp as he leaned in further and kissed her.

She slumped against the wall as he drew away. Her brain sparked erratically from thought to thought. It took both of her hands clutched on his sleeve to keep her upright. The stone was warm against her back, despite the cold night air blowing in through the bell tower windows. She could taste him on her lips. He gently tucked her hands against her chest then with a mischievous wink, released her. He vanished down the stairs so swiftly she almost thought he flew down them.

She slid down the wall and sat on the top of the stairs. She had no energy or wit left to call after him. Vash had kissed her, and here she had thought the whole time that this would be an end. She glared at her hands in her lap. Why had she gone all shaky? A brief kiss should not have given her such a shock.

.

Vash helped Calor and Lina load the jeep with supplies. They climbed in, waiting for him.

"You're missing dinner!" Calor reminded him.

Vash shook his head, while Livio waited here, he would remain. Lina dug in one of the crates and tossed him two tins. Sardines. Vash pocketed them with a slightly fixed grin and waved them off. After their dust trail vanished into the darkening night, he walked slowly out to the dunes. He walked until the dune crest hid the citadel and then sat down in the sand. He found that one of the small desert cats had followed him, black all over with green eyes. He opened one tin of sardines and the cat daintily ate its meal. Vash tried a few from the second tin, and then put them down for a creature who did appreciate them.

He lay back in the sand. He smiled crookedly up at the moons; even the presence of the fifth moon in the sky did not perturb him. He had meant the kiss as a teasing farewell. They had too much between them for him just to leave it. Then he had seen the hope in her eyes. He had been right on calling her lie, that brusque nature of hers that kept people from her heart. She did like him. He smiled happily. He wanted to dance and sing and go and find her and cuddle her until she stopped trying to hit him. Yet he lay there, staring up at the stars, soaking in the feeling that infused his whole being. This pleasure was rare and he was not going to spoil it.

Unable to sit still for long, Vash had done a recce and had found Zachary to compare notes. As far as they could discover they had cleared the outer citadel of Terrans, and had rescued all the children held in the lower halls. Livio guarded the hospital, and the others held strategic watch points. Vash found a spot where he could watch the Keep and think. He had missed something. That Keep was important and he could not work out why. He was tired, distracted, and a little hungry which didn't help matters.

As he sat a movement in the courtyard three stories below caught his eye. He almost dismissed it then stared as three Eye of Michael members, who by their tidy appearance had kept themselves above the general mêlée and confusion of the rescue attempts, crossed the yard. One carried a Punisher. He looked older than the old Master Livio and Nicholas had served. One of the old guard, Vash respected him for that. Their power enhancing drugs wrecked havoc on the body, and if this man was still alive, he had the ability to survive and the wit to pick his fights. Damn. He had missed something big. What was it? Why would the Eye of Michael send out a Punisher wielder? They were the ultimate assassins, so good they could afford to be brazen about it. Vash stared at the Keep trying to think, but the harder he tried the more empty his mind seemed.

It was then that he felt it. A shuddering vibration buzzed through the rock. Puzzled Vash put his hand against the wall and waited. The sensation repeated. This was not earthquake territory. Vash moved carefully across to the window on the far side of the passage. If he leaned out he could see part way out into the desert along the deep canyon that separated the two parts of the fortress from each other. He felt the tremor through his whole body this time. There. As if he needed the visual confirmation out in the desert. Three sandworms, far in the distance, visible as they crested the dunes. But they were a decoy for those who did not know the worms. They were digging, here, beneath the rock. Vash felt his heart sink as realisation finally caught up to him. This was the place the First Leader of the Sandworms had spoken of in September. He eyed the Keep in alarm. He had seen the minor alterations they had done to the captured children in the hospital. What sort of experiments did they do in the central keep? Worse still, the Sandworms left no one alive. Oh man! He had left Livio guarding the wrong place. He caught a movement to his right as someone pulled their head back in at a window. They had seen him. The Eye of Michael knew he was here, as he knew they were there. They were eyeing the Keep. He did not trust them any more than the Sandworms. If there was a way in, Vash realised, it was not from this side. He sidled off into the night. Silently, the three followed.

Livio half dozed against the wall. He knew he was exhausted, but he had faced worse. He woke and blinked, wondering what had called him to full consciousness. There was no one in the passage. He concentrated; he could not sense the Punisher wielder. He remained still against the wall, desperately searching. There, distant, and his attention focussed elsewhere. Livio opened his hand and looked at the sachet of vials he had taken from the hospital store. He would need more than these to face that Punisher wielder. He would also need luck and wit on his side. He tried to reason out who it might be. Of the old guard, aside from Master C there had only been two alive when he was granted the three Punishers. If this man was new, then he would have his master with him. Either way, he would face great talent. His heart felt warm for the first time since killing Ezrah had stolen his joy. He clutched his fist closed. He would not think of Chronica now. He sprang away from the wall as it shook against his back. Bewildered he put his hand onto it, but he could also feel the shuddering vibrations through the floor. Sandworms. Drilling rock. Why in the world would they drill here? Realisation sluiced cold sweat all over him. They were attempting the Keep. The First Leader of the Sandworms had wanted to kill all at the hospital at the last place they had attacked. He would do so now if he gained the Keep. Livio looked down at his fist. No. This fight required more than he could currently give. He did not hesitate as he pushed the hospital doors open and walked steadily inside.

Climbing the sheer face of the mountain was not what Vash had had planned for the darkest night of the month. It had taken him two hours to reach this point level with the only entrance he had been able to sense. He maintained a sense of pride that he had outpaced the three fit fellows following him by at least ten minutes. That would be enough to see to the heart of the trouble without their interference. He paused as he felt the activated sensor. It was an old type of beam sensor, heat or movement only. He threaded his way past the beams and slipped through the shadows of the keep. This place smelled of Terrans, it was the way they cooked their food, as much as what they preferred to eat. Now what would have irritated the Eye of Michael enough to send over a Punisher wielder? And one who would use stealth over the brazen front door approach they usually used in their intimidation tactics. He suddenly felt his stomach flip. They expected a deadly fight, what the hell was he doing in the middle of it? He fidgeted and took his nerves out on prancing down the hall, assessing each room he passed with a mere glance. Nothing of interest on the first two levels. Aha.

He passed under an open portcullis and his heart sank as he realised he had entered some sort of medical facility far superior to the one Livio discovered. Only this one was different to the many variations on the theme he had seen over the years. Worse, this place looked exactly like the hospital they had shot up in September. He had been right about what had drawn the Sandworms. He felt his stomach go leaden and in a panicked moment threw out his senses. He could sense plants.

He crossed through the facility stealthily; the doctors on night duty had yet to notice him. He slipped out the side door, and down the stairs that lead to the orbs. He found the door guarded by a keypad lock and spun a single crystal feather out of his flesh. The door opened for him and closed behind him with a click. He walked down the passage between the orbs which were mounted opposite each other along the metal walls. He marvelled, there were at least a hundred and fifty of them, true orb plants. Whole, unharmed, and well kept with enough power for them to generate what was needed for the facility. Or rather, for what was needed for a city five times the size of Octovern. Where was the power going? He could see fifty of them, the others he could sense on the two levels below.

Some of the plants recognised him. He smiled and sang back to them. Others curiously called out to him. Vash halted in shock. He had never encountered these plants before. He recognised them though. They had brought the Terrans across from Earth, and they had very different loyalties. Vash retreated a step as he realised his sisters could overwhelm him if they came at him all at once. He could only protect himself from that sort of onslaught by rapidly dominating and enslaving those plants allied with him. He stared sadly up at the plant above him. She reached down as if to wave at him, though he never could be sure they entirely understood the subtleties of human interactions. He was tired and hungry and really could do with a drink. A slow smile crept across his face. He had seen a stash of whiskey in the doctors' offices. The alarms suddenly went off. Vash spun on his heel and sprinted back. Best get that whiskey before the Eye of Michael shot the place to pieces.

Livio hefted his favourite Punisher. Of the three he owned this one was no better balanced, or easier to load; it was that it fitted most comfortably in his right hand. The others were made for his prosthetic arm and his left hand respectively. He could wield them with equal dexterity, but this particular one was his favourite. Doctor Kelvogh eyed him apprehensively.

"You'll remember our bargain." He said shortly.

Livio gazed at him, all pleasure draining out into deep fury, but the doctor was not the one he really wanted. It would be too easy to kill him, and then where would the children be?

"I will." He said languidly. "And you may come to regret it."

He picked up his two other Punishers and walked out.


	47. Chapter 47

**_Chapter 47_**

It was four hours into the watch and Meryl sat where Vash had been sitting on the edge of the low wall. It was the best place to watch the Keep without having to stand. She absently ran her tongue over her lips. She could no longer taste him. She scowled and fiercely scrubbed her mouth with her sleeve. Stupid plant. What right did he have to kiss her? She had been so ready to have this all behind her, and he had only made it a million times worse. Such typical Vash behaviour. She glared at the Keep, then felt a wry realisation well up inside her. Yes, it was typical Vash behaviour. He always made things far worse before they got better. She sighed forlornly as she leaned back against the wall behind her. She did not want to know how much worse it could get, so far it had been a rollercoaster ride with more downs than ups. There was a light lower down on the Keep wall. It looked like a patch of moonlight, only the moonlight did not reach so far down. Meryl perked up, since the earth tremors that had started two hours into her watch, there had not been much to distract her. Vash had reported a light on the wall the night before, perhaps this was it. She watched it, wondering what it signified. It was then that she saw a movement as a flash of steel caught the light. The retractable bridge was being extended once more.

Meryl stood and leaned out the window so she could see the bridge. It had just extended its full length, but instead of an invasion from the Keep, someone walked from the Citadel into the Keep.

A single man, carrying three huge Punishers marched across it. Damn the Eye of Michael, they had brought in a Punisher Wielder. One compensating for many things, she eyed the three Punishers, just what was the idiot trying to prove? Three where one was destructive enough. She could not even get the foolish man's attention; from up in the bell tower her derringers would be no good.

She glanced up at the two of the five moons visible in the sky. It was just after midnight. The fifth moon was hanging low over the horizon. She glanced down at the bridge again. She thought she caught a fleeting shadow, but whatever had crossed was gone and the bridge was now empty. She looked out at the desert pondering what to do. What was the point of her watching if she could do nothing when something did happen?

She checked her watch; a minute had crawled by, feeling like an hour all the way. Her position was poor. She glared out at the black rock in front of her. There was the whole bulk of the Keep and the citadel itself that blocked much of her view of the closer ground, possibly people were attempting the Keep and she would never know. It was just then that a small flying craft drifted across the sky, Meryl stared. How had she missed the low hum it emitted? Had she been too intent on the Keep?

She glanced down again, the bridge was empty. Now she had to worry about people coming and going both ways.

She inspected the desert and the craft humming its way across the sky. It took an agonising five minutes to approach, but was still too far for her to make out any distinguishing features. She could see where the orphanage was on the distant horizon, but not the structures itself. To her relief the flying craft ignored the orphanage, she then realised that brought it directly to the citadel. No! She wished it away. They did not need any more trouble here. She clutched at the wall, trying to think. She could stay and watch, but what good did that do if there was danger approaching and no one knew. She would have to leave her post and report. She inspected her surroundings trying to memorise everything, but saw nothing but star speckled skies and sand. She scanned the horizon. Sand, stars, rocks, more sand, dunes, sand, and a sandworm. She almost cricked her neck trying to turn back to where she had seen the sandworm. That was the last straw. She turned to go and warn Zachery.

Just then there was an almighty explosion. Fire leaped out of the western side of the citadel, where once there had been a significant munitions dump before Livio and ZT had disseminated the contents, either arming people, or sending stuff on to December. It was empty now, why had they destroyed it? A diversion? Meryl glanced down at the bridge, now in a quandary. The bridge was still empty. The sky craft now changed its direction and headed like a moth towards the light. Was it a beacon? Who was at work here? What would they gain from a diversion? What was happening down there? Then came the rapid sound of gunfire. Meryl leaned out of the tower, trying to see as the noise became an all out battle. What was going on?

Then Calor sprinted across the bridge so fast Meryl only knew her because of how fast she moved. She lost count of the people running across the bridge, first this way then that. Then she saw Milly run across the bridge into the keep with her stun gun on her shoulder, chasing two others. She waited but no one followed her. Where was Abe? Wasn't he watching Milly's back?

"Aaagh, I've had it!" She snapped, why had Vash asked for her to be assigned to the tower of all places? Stupid plant keeping her out of the action. "Watch the bridge yourself!"

She had to help Milly.

 **.**

Vash found a bottle, as well as a knot of doctors rapidly grabbing their emergency supplies. They were too preoccupied to bother with him as he snatched up the whiskey and sprinted out of the room. He heard the rapid thump of heavy fire power and sprinted across to where he had seen the portcullis. Instead of a dimly lit facility, the lights now blazed and people ran pell-mell across it. A mortar thumped at the portcullis throwing shrapnel through the gaps and denting the grid, but it still held. Vash rolled out from under the gurney he had dived behind. It would hold for several seconds more as they readied for another shot.

He scrambled across the room and encountered a group of dazed looking children, woken by the attack. Some had been obviously augmented with mechanical prosthetics, others seemed normal until he noticed that a few had bandages under their pyjamas. Despite their clearly unwell state, they were still able to walk. What were they all doing just standing there?

"Go!" He said calmly, and pointed to the nearest exit. "Get out of here!"

The children looked at the door and back at him. Then they fell apart, some cried, others laughed and others ran at him and hugged him.

"You came!"

Vash put the bottle onto the floor. He tried to pat and herd at the same time. Were these Livio's orphans? He thought he recognised a few faces now a few years older. Why could they not understand the urgency?

"This way!" He said grimly, and picked up the pace to a fast walk. At least they followed him. The thump of a mortar and shrapnel shredding equipment urged them on.

He found his way down to the bridge with his tail of children. They would not stay by the bridge. Instead, they followed him to the room just above the bridge where the mechanics were housed.

"Stay back." He warned as he went to work on the windlass. With a few heaves got the mechanism turning. The exercise became easier as the bridge extended. It thumped into place.

"There!"

He found them all peering out of the narrow observation slit.

"It's Livio!" They called excitedly.

"W-what?"

Vash darted to the slit and peered out in time to see a wild man wielding three punishers saunter across the bridge. Just what was he thinking? Clearly nothing, by the calm fury radiating off him. Oh man, why did things always go from bad to worse?

"C'mon, all of you." He said in a voice of manic cheerfulness and forced calm. "Back over the bridge. I've gotta help Livio."

They eyed him, not buying it for an instant. That was in part why he loved children, but now it was not in their favour.

"C'mon." He said in a firmer voice. "Can you get to the church?"

A few nodded as he herded them out.

"Then go, and find a man called ZT."

They rolled their eyes and moved grudgingly, but they went. Vash turned tail and sprinted after Livio. Those few seconds of delay had cost him. Where was he now?

.

Livio paused. Someone had left a whiskey bottle standing on the floor of the main medical facility. He eyed the destruction around him, and looked at the bottle standing whole. Such a peculiar thing. Just then a mortar exploded sending the portcullis that covered the main exit and part of the walls flying into the room. Livio calmly cricked his neck as several of the Eye of Michael members pulled guns on him.

"What are you doing here?" One, stupider than the rest, demanded.

Livio gazed at him. He was not interested in insignificant mortals. Just then, the Punisher wielder stepped through. Ah. The world went quiet. Master Rue. The grim reaper. Livio did not raise his weapons. He simply stood. If Master Rue wanted him dead, he would already be dead.

"Doublefang." Master Rue gazed at him.

Livio did not react, but was pleased that the head of the Eye of Michael could tell the difference between the presence of his clear mind and the overwhelming darkness of Razlo.

"This mess the Terrans have made is regrettable."

Livio agreed, but did not speak.

"I have heard you still follow the Plants, though your allegiance lies with Vash rather than Knives."

"Yes."

Master Rue gazed at the wreckage thoughtfully.

"Will you hand the children over? They cannot return to society as altered as they are."

Livio almost broke a tooth he clenched his jaw so hard on the furious explosion of denial that flared through him. It was the truth and he knew it. His blood burned to eliminate the man before him, he could not condemn the already traumatised children to the life the Eye of Michael offered. Wait. Master Rue had worded it strangely, as if there was actually a choice. Livio considered the old man, he could not be much into his fifties, but his eyes were sharp and alert. This was a test, but what was he testing?

"I want to keep them here." Livio found his voice to be calm, while within his emotions were seething. "This chapter house has been empty for far too long. Those that chose the path of assassin will be free to visit the Headquarters for your testing, but those here, I will teach the ways of love and peace."

There was a muttered derisive outcry from those who accompanied Master Rue. The old man shifted and they twitchily fell silent. Master Rue examined him, his dark eyes keen.

"They will walk a far harder path." He said grimly.

"Master C would have said I have grown weak and soft." Livio challenged.

"The Master you now follow defeated and protected the Master we follow. I would like to see why, and perhaps allowing you your foolery, we may gain this insight. Would you join me on my hunt?"

Livio smiled, he could not believe such an honour was offered, yet, that too was a test.

"No. I must see that my kids are not killed by the Terrans in their panic."

Master Rue considered him. For a moment, Livio felt a cold wash of intense fear as if for a second his life hung in balance. He had not offended Master Rue, but strangely had pleased him, and in doing so had increased himself as a threat to the Eye of Michael.

.

Calor dodged the irritating humans who tried to hit her with their too slow reactions. Some were swifter on the uptake, but they still missed. She was flaring extra power in her desperation. During the boring watch they had stood that night she had sensed something in the Keep. She threw open the doors and skidded to a halt. She felt the world go calm about her. Yes. Here he was. They had not allowed Rimor to die. She ignored the other patients about him, and went over as he groggily opened his eye as she called silently to him. The old plant smiled at her.

(Calor, you look so angry.) She rolled her eyes at him.

(Let's get you out of here. Fifth Moon wants to help you.)

(They gave me legs again.) Rimor said dreamily.

Calor grimaced as she reached him. They had, by augmenting his body with metal and electronics. Rimor was still so out of it, she had to coax him like a baby to get him to sit up.

Calor spun around as she felt the gate discharge, flinging out her arms and feathers and blocking it instinctively. She was surprised and vastly disappointed not to find Teres as her opponent. She stared, she had felt the nature of an upper sky, but this plant was not him. This man had black hair and the palest blue eyes she had yet seen. He seemed as astonished as she was.

"Who the hell are you?" He demanded stepping back and dropping his defences disdainfully. Calor glared at him, he was as arrogant as Teres was about being an upper sky to her earth gate.

"Calor." She said succinctly and took a moment to inspect him. Goodness, he really was Vash's twin, the body structure was the same, as was that rather long nose, and those silly looking ears that stuck out at the side of his head. She had no idea what Meryl saw in Vash, but at least she had chosen the better of the two. This man's eyes were dead and cold.

"You're Knives. Introductions done. Now go away, I'm trying to help a friend."

She turned away, and as expected of an immature male, he tried the gate discharge trick again.

She blocked him again. This time without bothering to turn around. She helped Rimor up, and he grunted with pain.

"Who's your friend?" He asked groggily, getting a glance at a very frustrated Knives in the doorway. He had released his micron thin attack blades, marvelling and infuriated that someone could block it.

"Vash's brother." Calor explained and pulled a blanket around Rimor's shoulders. He was too heavy for her to easily carry. It would help a great deal if he could walk with those augmented legs of his.

Rimor pushed himself up to look around her. Knives tried the trick again, only this time she and Rimor both blocked him.

"Give us a break man." Rimor coughed, then complained in an undertone to Calor. "He's just like his brother, has to do things several times over before he learns it."

"I'm nothing like Vash!" Knives spat from the doorway before he could stop himself.

"Thank goodness!" Calor exclaimed with utter sincerity. "He's an idiot!"

Knives gave her a disdainful glare and clearly deciding they were utterly beneath his notice, sauntered off. Calor hauled Rimor to his feet and helped him shuffle across the room, as he shakily took control of his cybernetic legs.

.

Meryl raced up the stairs and encountered Abe first; the plant looked as if someone had smacked him across the head with an iron girder. He also had a semi automatic in each hand and looked furious.

"Meryl!" He exclaimed and ran across to her with a slight skip in his step as if covering a limp. "Have you seen Milly?"

"Across the bridge in the keep!" Meryl told him and fell into step beside him. "What happened?"

"Zachery got me to help these injured kids out to the jeep when the tower exploded. It was all I could do to throw the kids in the back as the munitions tower came raining down around us. Then there was this sandworm, and I leaped out to distract it as Mutare floored it back to the orphanage. Ever tried to distract a sandworm?" He shuddered and pointed at the large bruise and nasty cut across his face. "It did this to me. Don't think it even noticed I was there. But it went for the citadel rather than the car. So I suppose that's good."

They darted through the hole Tarq had cut through the portcullis, and ran for the bridge.

.

Vash wove his way up the stairs of the Keep, crossing rooms at a speed most people would struggle to register. Only, this was the Eye of Michael, and they had talent. Or were there augmented Terrans like they had encountered back in September? He could not tell. Vash danced about as he dodged bullets. Not now! He did not have time for this. He found Calor kicking a few people ahead of him as she helped an injured man back to the main citadel. She glanced at him as if she was about to say something, then the man she was supporting collapsed as a bullet grazed his thigh. She gave a furious scream and threw him over her shoulder in a fireman's hold and sprinted through the burst of gunfire, flaring plant feathers to protect herself. Vash let her go, the fewer people mixed up in the Keep the better.

He couldn't find Livio anywhere, so he returned to the place where he had left his whiskey bottle. Only, he walked into the room just as a posse of very well armed Eye of Michael people were leaving.

"What are you doing here?" One of the stragglers of the group demanded.

Vash was at a loss to explain, and held up the whiskey bottle in a spot of inspiration.

"I was thirsty!" He protested as the man shot him an incredulous look of derision and hurried after the two others who had already headed down into the stairs that would take them to the plant chambers.

"W-wait!" Vash yelled and sprinted after them. He called a warning with his mind, to the plants. But he knew they probably would not be able to coordinate themselves independent of the program that controlled them. Not when faced with humans. He had only seen complete revolution against the operations programs when they had faced the fused entity, and their own brethren. He almost cried with frustration, this was their greatest weakness. Their inability to understand that as weak as humans were they had the ability to wreck havoc without the use of any great power. He barrelled down the stairs, wielding his whiskey bottle.

It was then that he felt the surge. For a moment he felt his heart leap, the plants had heard him. They were at least attempting to protect themselves. A sound like several gunshots reverberated through the stair well and with a great grinding shudder the entire plant room shifted sideways. The door tore open with the force of the shift, and two of the Eye of Michael members leaped inside.

Vash came to a scrambling halt on the landing above them, staring at the shifting plant chamber. Somehow they had been made detachable. As he watched incredulously, the first slid out to hover on growling engines beside the mountain's sheer cliff face. It was not merely a detachable chamber; it was a flying ship. A movement on the landing below caught his eye and his heart sunk. He had just found the Punisher Wielder, but not Livio! Where was he? No time for that, the Eye of Michael seemed to have something planned for the Plants. The Punisher Wielder had leaped back onto the stone landing of the stairs as the room had jerked sideways. One of the Eye of Michael men leaned out of the door, the distance now too great for him to leap to the stair platform.

"He's not on board that one!" He yelled across to them.

None of them looked up to where Vash stood. He was rather glad. Shock had left him holding the whiskey bottle in the air like some kind of farewell salute. The rest of the posse sprinted down the stairs, and Vash tore after them. They reached the second plant room as it was busy sliding out. The man with the punisher put a mortar through the door and three of his sidekicks dove through.

"N-no!" Vash leaped down and tried to grab the man with the Punisher.

He found himself pinned down with every gun the Punisher Wielder's associates possessed. It was better they think him captured than have them fire their weapons so close to the plants. What were they thinking? The Punisher Wielder glanced at him and made some signal, as they all suddenly released him.

"Vash the Stampede."

"Hello!" Vash grinned as he gingerly sat up. He had slammed his head into the stone floor and it hurt. Also, with as twitchy as the Eye of Michael were, slow was good.

Behind them, the men who had leaped on board the escaping ship called back to them.

"Master Rue! He's not here!" His voice was almost drowned out as the ship steadily increased speed to soar after its sister ship.

Their attention shifted immediately to the next floor down, leaving Vash sitting on the stone landing.

"W-wait!" Vash sprang to his feet and tore down the stairs after them.

"Who are you hunting?" Vash demanded as he elbowed his way through the Eye of Michael to the Punisher Wielder. Master Rue paused, and assessed him with a dark eyed stare.

"A plant, like yourself. Game?"

Vash gaped at him; the man was insane. He had no chance against a plant, especially if the plant knew he was coming. A very horrible knot formed in his stomach. What if it was Knives?

"W-what's his name?" His voice shook.

They came to the third ship which was already out over the sky and too far to leap. But that did not stop Master Rue. He sprinted across the gap and somehow landed on the door ledge. Vash simply leaped down onto the next ship below as it detached.

"What is his name?" Vash yelled.

"Teres!" The man called back and fouled the lock on the door and slipped in.

He wasn't in there for two seconds when he leaped out the door and somehow managed to scramble up the side of the ship. A platoon of Terran soldiers poured after him. Vash went wide eyed when he realised what a trap that was.

"D-don't kill them!" He yelled, backing up for run-up for the leap to the third ship. He was about to jump when bullets strafed past him and he flung himself out of the way.

Master Rue took out the Terrans who had been trying to corner him, and hit the fourth ship with a mortar he launched. The ship lurched as the explosion took out one end.

"Don't! You'll harm the plants!" Vash screamed at him. Then darted out of the way as the Terrans began shooting from the hole in the forth ship as well as door in the third ship. But his tap dancing over bullets only saved him for a moment. The ships swung wildly out of control and smashed into the side of the keep. Vash sprinted across the length of the ship, as the mountain cracked and sent boulders tumbling down. The ship sank fifty yarz before righting itself.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow! I'm too young to die! Ow!" Vash shut up when the Terrans tried to take pot shots at him. There was a thunderous crack above them. Vash gawped in horror as what seemed like half the mountain face slid down in a solid ponderous mass. A great gravestone to lay over all their mortal remains. He cast about in pure terror. There was nowhere he could run, the broken ship wouldn't move fast enough. Then a thunderous retort from the third ship sent two mortars into the vast wall of stone. It exploded on impact. Vash gave a yell of terror and dove off the top of the ship. Instead of a solid wall, there were now thousands of rock chunks each as deadly as cannon balls. Vash clung to the side of the cliff face as the rocks thundered down onto the ship below. There was a great whining groan from the engines as the ship tilted and deflected the worst of the debris. Vash watched as a figure leaped from the third ship to the fourth, taking out the Earth Federation Peace Force with what seemed like deadly ease.

"No!" Vash yelled at the night as the ship rose to limp after its sisters, while he was stuck clinging to the damaged rock face. As he yelled, he saw a man emerge from the hole, and walk over his fellow fallen Terrans. Master Rue raised his Punisher. Strange-feathered appendages swarmed around him as Vash heard a solid thunderous gunshot. The plant winced and withdrew his feathers but not before he had sliced the Punisher wielder and his gun in two.

Vash froze against the wall as the man turned and gazed directly at him. He felt the puzzlement. This was Johnston. Or Teres as they all called him now.

(You were dead. I saw you fall.)

Vash did not answer and ignored the pressure to tell the Terran plant what had happened.

(Yet, you warned us here. Why?)

His voice seemed to become quieter as the distance between them increased.

(The plants.) Vash whispered, unable to express how heartbroken he was. Teres was a plant himself, yet he simply did not understand his sisters. Teres did not reply, or perhaps the range was too great. Vash could hardly see the ships now, even with his excellent eyesight.


	48. Chapter 48

**_Chapter 48_**

Meryl and Abe ran across the bridge. They walked cautiously through the passages, taking side routes to avoid the Eye of Michael who were rather indiscriminate in their shooting. Abe scowled as he ducked and fired off a round, there were sharp yells and scrambling then silence. They walked into the next passage to find blood but no bodies. Meryl wondered if it were a petty grudge for Abe's actions the night before. Possibly, it was their circuitous route, but she found the keep more of a maze than the outer citadel had been. The rock carved passages wound around all over the place.

"There are orb plants here, deep down." Abe remarked as they came to a narrow flight of stairs. "But we need to go up if we're to find other people. Two floors above us."

Frustratingly they found themselves in another dim passage with doors all along its length. They split up and tried the doors. Meryl found the stairs up to the third level behind the tenth door. She leaned back to call Abe who was working his way down the passage the other way.

"Meryl." He said in a hoarse voice. "Come here."

She sprinted over. She recoiled sharply once she stuck her head in. The faint scent of blood and overwhelming stink of disinfectant haunted the room. The beds were all empty, awaiting occupants. There were racks of weapons enhanced prosthetics on the far wall, and several immersion vats with feeder tubes, and other life support systems attached to the sides. Through glass doors there were several operating theatres, their tables partly hidden by screens.

"Something tells me we're not going to be facing regular thugs on the next floor." Abe said grimly.

"Milly!" Meryl exclaimed in panic and sprinted for the stairs. Even with his limp, Abe beat her too it. He fairly flew up the stairs.

.

Meryl was glad of the warning. They were shot at as soon as they emerged. She dove for the questionable cover of a table and set of chairs as Abe strafed the room with bullets. This time it was the erstwhile Terrans rather than the Eye of Michael. Meryl crossed the room while Abe was entertaining himself. She fled down the passages, throwing open doors. Most were bed suites, Spartan in that they had only a bed and desk, but the covers and pillows were luxurious and there were little things demarcating a personal touch to each room. Even if that was a set of weights, or an outsized weapons rack. Then they came to the recovery ward. Meryl felt her stomach drop. Here there were at least twelve of the older children, still unconscious and connected to the machines. There were two empty beds in the middle of the room, though that looked recent. But no Milly. Meryl pushed away from the room and ran on.

* * *

"Calor!"

The plant looked up from the dosage chart she was filling in for one of the human patients as three healthy children skidded into the make shift ward at the orphanage. She had brought Rimor back here and had spent an hour setting up his medication so that he could at least rest with minimal pain. Once he slept she had checked the other children in the ward as Livio and Dr Kevlogh had shown her.

"There's a ginormous sand worm here looking for you!"

Calor blinked as several others arrived at a more stately jog behind the children.

"A sandworm? I didn't know they could speak." She said to the panting kids.

"This one has a man with him. He is calling to speak to you."

"Says he's the First Leader of the Sandworms." A skinny girl said bossily.

She realised she would get no peace until she went out to see what this pathetic person wanted. Scaring half the orphanage into her sick ward, what was this? She finished filling in the chart and gave Laura's brave grimace an encouraging nod before leaving her bed.

.

Outside in the dim pre-dawn light it was mayhem. Everyone was leaning out of windows and the bravest of them held torches and stood by the boundary fence. All stared at the truly enormous worm that was lying on top of the sand a hundred yarz or so beyond. Ten yarz from the gate stood the First Leader of the Sandworms. He had the distinctive slit eyes of the worm avatar, and she had met him before in September. She marched up to the gate and stood on the threshold.

"I am Calor, what's the meaning of this?" She snapped.

To her astonishment, he gave her a familiar nod of greeting.

"You are to come with me."

She eyed the worm and looked back at the man.

"Why?"

"Master Knives wishes to see the plant Calor."

She rolled her eyes. She did not have time for such games. As soon as Rimor was well enough that he would cope, she was going after Teres.

"No. I'm busy. Good day."

She turned and walked away.

She felt the sting of an insect and reacted, flinging out void globes at all the insects surrounding the orphanage for a hundred yarz. As this put most of the Leader of the Sandworms' personal insects out of commission he staggered back, blinking at her incredulously.

"And don't try such filthy tricks, Native." She spat at him. "Now get lost."

She stood there eyeing him until he mounted the worm with a leap and took off across the desert.

"Watch the sand, and keep an eye out for those accursed flies." Calor snapped at the watching humans. "If you even think you see a hint of a sandworm, tell me." She stormed back into the orphanage.

* * *

The first sun peeked over the horizon as Vash pulled himself over the ledge. Safe! Wahoo! Oh man, that had been bad. He lay on the shelf of rock, gazing up at a passage into the Keep, what a magnificent sight after climbing the almost sheer face of rock. He flexed his hand to recall some sensation to his fingers. He pushed himself wearily to his feet. Where was Livio in all this mess? If Teres had escaped, he must have taken his prisoners with him. Those poor kids. Vash loped along the passages and threw out his senses. He almost tripped over his own boots as he felt the one presence he had never really expected to feel again. Knives. No. Surely not. He took a deep breath to calm himself. Why would Knives be here? Vash frowned, by Livio's report he had been present when the Sandworms had raided September. Gulping down panic, he sprinted. He skidded around a corner and almost tripped over Lina lying at the turn in the passage sniping people around the corner.

She tried to knife him in fright as he crouched down beside her.

"Vash!" She scowled as she put her knife away. "They have plants with them!" She panicked and grabbed his coat as he stood. He rested a hand lightly on her head. The plant standing in that room could surely hear his wildly beating heart, as well as their conversation. He could sense the faint pressure of Knives' awareness against his own. His brother knew he was there, and for some reason was deliberately ignoring him.

"I can handle the plants." He said calmly. "Stay here and keep other people away."

He then flung out an arm to protect her as Livio came barrelling around the corner.

"Whatcha standing 'round here for!" Livio yelled and gathered Vash in his slipstream. "They have landed a ship and are getting away!"

"W-wait!" He overtook Livio, startled that no one had tried to pepper them full of bullets. Or worse, slice them to slithers. Shock flooded through his system as he sprinted ahead. Just a second ago he had been so certain of his brothers presence, but now he felt nothing.

They ran out into a private lounge room with an open balcony. Signs of a swift exit were visible with several discarded personal items. A coat, several half-eaten sandwiches, a spilled glass of wine and an empty wine bottle.

.

"I think I can hit them." Lina lay her gun down and sited after the flying craft that was now headed ack towards December.

"No." Vash said quietly.

"There is someone standing at the door, I can just make them out in the sight."

"N-no!" Vash pushed her gun out of alignment with his boot.

He could also see the person in the door, watching them. That is all they would do for now. For a long moment he felt as their lives hung in a precarious balance, then the door closed. He closed his eyes and clawed his hand into a fist. His brother was alive.

Livio lowered his guns, watching the ship with his augmented eye.

"The Soldalus is in the north east." Livio mused darkly.

"They're not Terran. They might have headed for the Headquarters of the Eye of Michael."

"But that's thousands of iles …" Livio exclaimed. "What did they have here in the Citedal that they didn't want us to find?"

"I don't think there was anything." Vash mused. "I think they came to see what was already gone." He gazed out at the speck of a ship.

"Vash, you know something. Spit it out."

Vash looked down at his feet.

"Vash!" Livio growled at him.

"Knives was with them."

Livio breathed out a slow ragged breath.

Lina flinched away from her gun, as she realised who she had been about to shoot. She glanced up at Vash as if expecting divine retribution. She began to pack up her gun and when the silence drew out long enough, she spoke again.

"Why aren't we dead?" She asked. "I read in the papers that the Terrans have tried to take him down at least three times and no one lived to report what exactly happened."

"Be thankful we are insignificant in his eyes." Livio said with an uncomfortable glance at Vash. "You do not want his attention."

Lina still eyed Vash awkwardly and slung her rifle over her shoulder and slipped out of the room. She was back a few seconds later.

"Uh." Her tone drew Vash from out of the dark mood he was brewing. "Hate to break it to you, but we have a problem."

Livio and Vash both pulled out their guns and Lina hefted hers on the strap on her shoulder.

"Not that sort of problem, kind of the opposite. They pulled down the security gates. We're stuck in here."

After a brief inspection of the four exits off the room they found they were indeed trapped.

* * *

Meryl felt herself grabbed off her feet and dragged into a room. She almost shot the person before she realised it was Abe who had grabbed her. She blinked as sunlight hit her right in the eyes. It was dawn, already, and they still had not found Milly.

"Wh-mmmm!" She elbowed Abe in the gut as he slapped a hand over her mouth. Ow! He was hurting her. She tried to bite him, but he only held on harder.

"Shh!" He hissed in her ear. "Look!"

He released her slowly and they peered out of the door. There was distant gunfire then silence. Someone had taken out the trapped Terrans in the keep with a severe finality. Then they saw three people run past the end of the passage.

"More Terrans?" Meryl whispered.

Abe gave a grunt.

"Let's find Milly quick and get out before they find us."

"Abe?" Meryl hurried after him. "What's different about these Terrans?"

He did not answer, and they were immediately distracted by a thumping above them then a thud as the grill fell from the ceiling. Meryl had her Derringers out as Livio dropped down from the air vent covered in dust.

"Hello!" He grinned at them. "Good to see some friendly faces!"

"Er, why were you in the vent?"

"Got trapped in the rooms upstairs. I thought I'd find the switch to open it from this side."

"Have you seen Milly?" Abe asked.

Livio shook his head.

"Nope, only Vash and Lina. They're trapped upstairs too."

"Ah! Here you are!"

They all rounded on the man who stepped in at the door. He stood there blinking at them as they all pulled out weapons of varying degrees of destructive power.

"The First Leader of the Sandworms!" Livio exclaimed. "What do you want?" He did not lower his guns.

"I am looking for Meryl Stryfe, and have found her."

Meryl stepped back, her heart hammering in her chest. Her last major encounter with the Sandworms and their avatars had been unspeakably awful.

"I am here to request that you send Calor of Fifth Moon to accompany myself so I may return to my Chieftain."

Meryl stared, bewildered and suspicious. What had prompted this? The Sandworms never asked, they took.

"Er, just who is your Chieftain?" She managed.

"Millions Knives."

"Never in a billion years!" Meryl spat. "You get out of here before I shoot you and you have to find another avatar!"

The First Leader slowly put up his hands.

"I must talk, Meryl Stryfe. Shoot if you must, but the request will come to you again."

Meryl's hand twitched and Livio clamped a hand over her grip on her gun.

"Wait." Livio said in a voice too calm not to be up to something. "We will consider the request if you answer a few questions about Knives."

The First Leader considered this.

"You want to know about Knives? What's there to tell that you don't know?"

"Why have the Sandworms formed an alliance with him?" Livio asked. "You were always independent before."

The First Leader grinned broadly.

"Can't you understand? He lives for this planet. In the last war, he would eliminate this planet before allowing those Earth Invaders to return. He failed, yet still he fights."

"You would have also died had he killed the planet." Livio pointed out.

"Yes." The First Leader shrugged as if this was an acceptable loss.

"You're as insane as he is." Abe breathed.

"Is that why you trapped his mind?" Meryl asked, wondering what had possessed the Sandworms to try and make an avatar out of Millions Knives. She dreaded to think what Vash would do about this.

The First Leader laughed.

"Knives is insane, and genocidal towards humans. He is also a plant, and a powerful rallying point. We cannot release him. It's not that we fear he will turn on us. It's that we can't. He is us and we are him, we're both weaker and stronger for it. He says that asking an idiot like me won't get you very far."

Abe and Livio stared at the First Leader. Meryl felt a cold shiver worm her way up her back. Knives was in some way aware of this conversation.

"Tell Knives that we want to negotiate a truce." Abe declared.

Livio gave a sharp cough of incredulous disbelief. Meryl could only gape at him. A truce with Knives? What planet was he from? Oh yeah, Earth, ahem. She tried to bury that thought. Did the plant not realize that Knives could hear him?

"You would be Abe Jefferson. What truce would you be able to negotiate? The death of all the human plague?"

"No." Said Abe. "Besides you need the humans as hosts."

The First Leader laughed.

"They do make useful hosts, and we do need them for farming. The crops the settlers plant are an excellent breeding ground for insects. A symbiotic system. Knives resents this, but sees the necessity of keeping the humans around. If nothing else they make good fertilizer." He shrugged, not noticing Meryl's expression of disgust or Livio's dark nod as if he could think of a few he could add to the fertilizer. It just did not make sense to Meryl.

"This is _Millions Knives_ we're talking about." She teased it out again just to check that it was true. "He used you Sandworms and insects in the last war."

The First Leader gazed at her, as if puzzled as to why this was an issue.

"Yes he did. It was that that made us realize that he would make an excellent ruler. We understand how he thinks better than we can gage most humans. We needed to unite against the new human threat. These humans are not like your lot. You were survivors, scrapping for what scarce resources you could get. The new ones are harvesters. We understand that, our locusts do the same thing."

"Eat everything and fly on?" Abe remarked. "Where to? They're stuck here like us."

"But their hive mind knows we are here, and will one day send others. This planet is ours; the resources it holds are ours. We've fought some settlers over water, but that is survival. Imagine what would happen if we had to fight settlers over minerals. Your people shoot at us, they would eliminate us. Having Knives at our core unites us, and we are guarding this planet."

Abe raised an eyebrow. Livio stared incredulously. Meryl did not like the fact that the Leader of the Sandworms had a valid point.

"Ah. So, we do not need to negotiate a truce, more of an alliance, then." Abe said eagerly. "We're very keen to get hold of a plant called Teres. As far as we've worked out he's been behind the plant orb thefts, among other things. We could do with your wide ranging eyes and ears."

"Then we shall have an accord. Bring Calor to the graveyards east of Lost July. I will meet with you there. Now I must leave. There come a people who claim an alliance with you. My presence would disturb them."

With that he gave a dip of his head and left.

Meryl grabbed Abe's arm.

"What the hell were you thinking?"

Abe gave a large grin.

"That I'd dress myself up in Calor's clothes and go and meet Knives for myself. I wanted to have a little chat about how he wiped the mind of a very dear friend of mine."

"He'd kill you." Meryl snapped at him.

"He could try." Abe shrugged as if he welcomed the challenge.

Meryl rolled her eyes as Livio put his head out the door, then ran off.

"Hey!"

"Let him go, we have to find Milly before things get any crazier!" Abe tore off down the passage.

They heard voices at the top of the stairs they were climbing and Abe took the stairs three at a time. Meryl only just kept him in sight.

"It doesn't make any sense." Livio was trying to short the gate mechanism, with Vash leaning through the bars giving him very dubious advice. "Knives is not one to work in the shadows and he certainly is not one to run away! And what's with this cage?"

"I can see a sandworm headed towards December." Lina called from the open lounge that overlooked the desert. "Hey, Vash, come look! There are steps here."

"Aha!" Livio cried and Vash pulled his arm through the gate just in time. The security gate rumbled back up into the ceiling.

Livio grabbed Vash's coat to stop him heading down the stair. "Vash, do you know your brother is working with the Sandworms, he's their Chieftain."

Vash tilted his head, looking more thoughtful than surprised. They both glanced down as they heard footfalls on the stair.

Meryl ran up, as Abe came to a halt in a lounge area.

"Aw, it's only you."

Meryl spun around as Vash and Lina looked up from behind the couch. Livio sauntered in through a far door.

"Have you seen Milly?" Abe asked.

"Nope." Lina shrugged and glanced at Vash who shook his head, his eyes worried.

There was a strange booming sound from downstairs. Everything shook.

"What are they doing?" Livio exclaimed as the tremor subsided. "Trying to bring down the mountain?"

"That was a Peace Force concussion bomb. They probably wanted to clear this place out of Teres' rebels."

"Peace Force?" Livio exclaimed. "What the hell do you mean Peace Force? I'm not having anything to do with them, they're worse than the Feds!"

"Oi!" Abe scowled at him. "I know my people. Scumbags they may be, but this lot, they're dependable. Did Chronica ever mention Panse?"

Livio flinched at the sound of her name, but his eyes widened.

"Panse is in on this raid? Vash! We have to get you out of here!"

"What? Why?"

"You're the only unlimited plant on this planet aside from your brother. Chronica said they were looking to capture you, to at least collar you with that inhibiter of theirs. But she thought they wanted to question you about your brother. Abe, which side are you on?"

Abe grinned.

"My name is Abe Jefferson and I work for Fifth Moon. I am here to help plants. And for some reason can't recall having seen possibly the most famous individual on the planet."

Vash protested but Livio grabbed him by the arm, hauling him across to the balcony where Lina had found the steps.

"But, hey! Wait. What about…"

"The children will be looked after if that Jefferson bastard-"

"I heard that!" Abe yelled.

"- knows his job. Meryl, use those derringers of yours on him if he betrays us." Livio called.

"Where are you going?" Meryl asked, puzzled.

"After Knives." Abe said bleakly.

"Ah, so you have some wit about you." Livio retorted and grabbed Vash who had twisted out of his grip and headed back across the room.

"Do you know where Knives has gone?" He called up to them.

Livio grabbed the back of his coat.

"They know we're searching for the Exitalis." Abe called. "And I think Knives is too." He turned to Livio. "If you want to rescue your twins, I'd get there before either Knives or the Teres's rogue Terrans."

Livio went still and gazed at Abe.

"What do you know _plant?_ " He spat the word as if it were a curse.

"It's a guess, but I think it's on the money." Abe shrugged as Meryl half turned and her eyes widened.

There was an odd echoing thump in the stair well.

"Get going!" Meryl hissed and sprinted for the stairs to try to stall the people ascending for as long as she could.

"The gate!" Abe followed her.

Vash grabbed Livio by the arm. They disappeared over the edge of the balcony with Lina as Abe tried to fiddle the gate mechanism. The gate slammed down and he took the key hanging beside the mechanism and locked it. He pocketed the key as several armoured members of the Earth Federation Peace Force marched when round the turn in the stair.


	49. Chapter 49

**_Chapter 49_**

The Peace Force enforcers gathered warily in the stair well watching them.

"Who were you talking to?" One of them demanded, then did a double take when she looked up at Abe. "Mora? Is that you in that weird native getup?"

"The name's Abe Jefferson now." Abe said in his natural Terran accent. "Hello, Emma."

The woman stared up at him, a little startled he knew her name, but it seemed that something else had occurred to her.

"You're a plant." Emma whispered, her eyes examining his black hair with a worried frown. "Panse will want to see you. Someone's been killing plants."

"I know." Abe said grimly. "Oh, and by the way, did you see a tall girl on your way up? She'd be carrying a large stun gun."

"No, we saw no one. Who were you talking to Mora?"

"Old friends." Abe shrugged. "They're part of the native resistance force, and have very good reasons not to like Terrans."

Emma then noticed Meryl.

"Oh, it's Miss Stryfe. That tall girl, do you mean Milly Thompson? She carries a stun gun, right? No, we never saw her. So, the resistance force you were talking to, that wasn't Vash the Stampede was it?"

Emma glanced up at Abe as the silence drew out a little too long.

"Mora, what are you hiding?"

"Oh, nothing." Abe said airily.

"What a fat lie." Emma snapped. "If Stryfe and Thompson are around, then Vash is around. And you're in with his gang, aren't you?"

"What? No!" Abe objected. "I'm part of Fifth Moon. Look, take me to Panse, I'm sure I can have this all sorted with a simple explanation."

"What's Fifth Moon?" Emma asked. "And what's with the native accent?"

"Er, sorry?" Abe said flustered, switching back to his thick Terran one with a guilty start.

"Unlock this gate and get moving Mora, and you, Miss Stryfe."

"Where is Milly?" Abe asked every second person he met on the stairs on the way down, no had seen her, though Abe described her rather well.

.

They followed the passages and passed a dusty looking Lina and the spunky dark haired woman who called herself Miss Jasmine. They were helping to calm the children amongst the Earth Federation Peace Force officials, who were wheeling the last few out of the hospital. Mutare was standing beside a group of others and pointing out things on a map. Calor, Vash and Livio were conspicuous by their absence. Meryl was beginning to worry about Milly. Where had she gone?

They walked outside to find a large aircraft had landed on the plain beside the citadel. Emma took them on board and through to a room marked 'Crew.'

"Captain! Look who we found up in the tower!"

Panse looked up from the screens he and three others were watching.

"Ah, ah!" Panse grinned. "Come in, Miss Stryfe, Mora, there is someone here who will be delighted to see you!"

Meryl walked over and found Milly's face looking out of the screen.

"Miss Meryl!" She said in a whisper and waved.

"Milly? Where are you?"

"Um. You know how you said to try and film everything with that pocket camera I, er, borrowed from Chronica?"

"Yes?"

"Well, I'm doing that."

"Where are you Milly?"

"In the air."

"What?"

"They don't know I'm here. It's kind of cold, but not too bad."

"Who are they?"

"Um." Milly turned the camera and held it up to the grid in front of her. There was a blur for a moment then Milly adjusted the position of the lens to look through the holes of the grid. Below her was the lounge of a ship. In the lounge sat none other than the man they knew as the First Leader of the Sandworms, around him in a circle of chairs, sat six others, three dressed in the draped cloth used in the deep desert, the other three in black clothing, though each distinctly styled to suit the wearer. Milly turned the camera back to her own face. "The ones in black are from the Eye of Michael, the others are with the Sandworms. And look there, Miss Meryl, he really looks like Vash, doesn't he?"

Meryl felt her stomach drop as Milly turned the camera and focussed it on an individual who was leaning against the bulkhead and staring moodily out of the far window. Vash's twin brother, Millions Knives.

Milly had just shown the Terran's proof that he was still alive. No. Worse. _Milly_ was on the same _ship_ as Millions Knives. She glanced at Abe whose face went grim.

"Milly girl." He said quietly. "He knows you are there."

Milly's expression changed from a smile to an expression of horror, she swung the camera around to Knives as he turned at that moment to look directly at her. Meryl wanted to jump through the screen and snatch Milly away. There couldn't be anyone who looked less like Vash. His eyes were so cold and empty.

"Put the camera in your pocket, but don't turn it off. We can trace you." Abe instructed.

Milly nodded and complied, the screen went dark. Abe reached over and shut down the outgoing microphone and video feed.

"Track her. If you want to get to the bottom of this mess, she will lead you to it."

"Mora?" Panse interrupted.

Abe glanced at him.

"What mess would you be talking about?"

"All of them." Abe shoved his hands in his pockets.

"You mean Millions Knives is responsible for the death of the Terran Independents?"

"No."

"Those robed people; she said they were sandworm folk. I've heard rumours. The sandworms can attack whole towns and call the people out without anyone being able to resist them. Are those their leaders?"

Abe shrugged.

"Panse. As odd as it is, those people we just saw, they're on our side in this one."

"Mora!" Panse scolded. "Be very careful. We've expended great resources to raid this place and you say that they're our allies?"

Abe put his hand on his face and dragged his fingers down it.

"Panse, nothing is simple on this world."

"Oh I know that, Mora, I know that."

"Then you will be able to accept that I am now called Abe Jefferson and I work for Fifth Moon, and what I tell you now, will be to aid the future of plants."

"We are aware of Fifth Moon and its priorities." Panse said with a glance at Meryl. "Though sources say it was a society designed to track down Vash the Stampede."

"Of course, he's a plant. We exist to help plants." Abe said his accent shifting unconsciously back to that of No Man's Land. "And the sandworms, the Eye of Michael, the missing orb power plants, a sod named Johnston, all are now Fifth Moon's business."

"We've heard of Johnston." Panse grimaced. "He's killed several of our people. A native hitman…"

"No." Abe interrupted. "He's a Terran plant by the name of Teres. He was working with Ezrah to capture and kill us independents."

Panse frowned.

"You know this, how?" He asked.

Abe turned to him and pointed at his hair.

Panse nodded.

"I didn't think that was hair dye." He said sympathetically. "What can we do to help? I've got a suspicion that this sort of mess will have a young man by the name of Vash the Stampede in the middle of it somewhere."

Abe shrugged.

"It might. But we have to do what we can."

"You don't trust us, Mora." Panse observed.

"No." Abe said with a smile.

"Yet you ask for our aid."

"Yes. The man you seek, the one in the middle of it all…"

"Is Millions Knives." Emma interrupted.

Panse raised his hand with a slight shake of his head.

"No. Not him. Mora said he was a temporary ally."

"What? But he's an arch criminal!" Emma exclaimed.

Panse raised a hand again and she fell silent.

"You seem to have a suspect, and not your fellow plants, Teras or Ezrah."

"Ezrah is dead." Abe said.

Panse gave a nod.

"Who then."

"Before I answer this question." Abe said quietly. "Would you allow Meryl and I to speak to you in private?"

"Absolutly not!" Emma exclaimed. "You're on the Wanted lists yourself, Mora!"

Panse considered him for a moment.

"Yes. Would everyone step outside the room for a moment?"

People filed out and Emma stood guard at the door, looking furious. Panse closed it and crossed the room to them.

"What was our real reason for coming to this world?" Abe asked.

Panse blinked.

"We had readings suggesting a fused entity. We could not ignore it."

"No. That would not have brought us here with seven destroyers and a planet destroying weapon."

Panse gazed up at him.

"Mora, be careful." He said quietly.

"Chronica knew, didn't she?" Abe asked.

"She guessed, as you did. But please, be careful." Panse made a gesture as if to indicate that the walls had ears.

Abe nodded, then leaned over and whispered just loud enough that Meryl caught it.

"The Zolfilian wanted the enhancement capabilities. This is an extension of the Navigation project."

Panse frowned.

"The Zolfilian?" He breathed. "Why would one of the great families be involved? No."

"Aside from responding to a rescue plea, we came here to scan the world, to see if it had minerals worthy of mining."

"Yes." Panse smiled at the official line.

"And because we suspected something like a fused entity, we were armed with Tall Hammer and given permission to destroy the planet."

"Yes. But you know that is only protocol. We would never have done it."

"You would never have done it. That is because you have a brave and good heart. My captain fired Tall Hammer, along with the six others. Fortunately, Millions Knives wanted to preserve his life, and that of the world that supported him. He destroyed Tall Hammer and damaged our ships. But while that damned us all, Knives damned the plants. Domina's at the heart of it."

"She's in care." Panse frowned. "Her personality could not be recovered; she remains part of the plant psyche."

"Panse, think." Abe clenched his fist. "Domina's one of the Zolfilian."

"She is sponsored by that family, yes." He mused in surprise.

Abe rolled his eyes.

"Panse, I know you think us different. But consider for a moment that we feel bonds of kinship like humans do."

"Yes. I understand that. Those brothers, Millions Knives and Vash the Stampede proved that. While they tried to fight each other to the death, they defended each other from whoever would attack them from the outside."

"Perhaps the Zolfilian did not count Domina as an adopted plant. Perhaps they counted her as a full daughter."

Panse frowned.

"Mora, that is speculation. I understand kinship among plants and kinship among humans. But when has it ever crossed the line?"

"Ah-" Meryl cleared her throat.

Abe raised a hand and Meryl fell silent, she had never seen Abe so grim. He stepped back from Panse with a dark expression in his eyes.

"I am called Abe Jefferson now. The Terrans who were my fellow crew drained my power and tried to kill me. This world took me in and I owe them my life. I am no longer one of you. I will tell you this, Panse, because you sheltered Chronica and her children from those who would have had them killed."

Panse opened his mouth and his eyes flickered with some alarm to the machines around the room.

Abe raised a hand and a hissing static filled the air.

"Careful, Mora! Those are what keep this ship flying!"

"I know." Abe said. "And my name is Abe. The only difference between us is that I once had the ability to wield great power, and to morph my physical form into tools I deemed useful. Physically humans and plants are compatible. Isn't that strange? Members of the same genus, yet different species cannot have children together, or if they do, they're neuter. Look at the animals back on earth. Yet, look at Chronica's children."

"Mora! That is a secret!"

"Is it? You know it. I know it." Abe frowned. "Panse, this is deeper than you know. Have you heard of one called Agone Zolfilian?"

"Ah, isn't he the heir apparent to the Zolfilian family?"

Abe smiled crookedly.

"Yes. He's Domina's brother. His father is the Emperor."

Panse stared at him, a little bewildered.

"Oh? And how does he know his sisters's fate so that it affects affairs on this world, so far from Earth?"

"When I leave, call up the manifest of the Exitalis, and the man Umbero Silmayer. He registers as human because he is human, in part. In part he is plant. Like those twins. His real name is Agone Zolfilian. Since his sister was captured by the fused entity, he has been pulling the strings. Look at the records, the initial order to fire Tall Hammer came from the Exitalis. All subsequent orders to influence the politics and power on this world came from the Exitalis. Once we were grounded he set himself up so that he might use this world as a testing ground. He has altered humans so they have plant capabilities. He has stolen power plants from this world…"

"The black hair and the murders." Panse murmured. "We found the draining machines and the massive power storage units. That's what they did to you, and others."

Panse scratched at his chin and frowned.

"If I were to say, repair the Namdrife, I would need a hundred power plants, seventeen power panels and enough stored energy for a warp drive."

"He's trying to return to Earth." Abe whispered hoarsely.

* * *

It was mayhem back at the Orphanage. In total they had found around four hundred children, most hungry and frightened. The Terrans stood guard over the Citedal, but it seemed that the true warriors of the Eye of Michael had slipped away. Leaving the Citadel, Meryl encountered Livio leaping out of a jeep driven by Lina. He eyed the group of children the Terran's had assigned to her. Many of them wore bandages, or were obviously altered in some way. They had been drugged, so were standing near each other rather glassy eyed. She hurried over to him.

"Where's Vash?"

Livio gave her a grim stare.

"He'll meet us back at the orphanage. He had some business." Livio gazed up at the citadel with a deep sadness in his eyes, as if reassessing it.

"Milly stowed away on Knives's ship." Meryl bit her lip when her voice trembled.

Livio put a hand on her head in a manner he used to comfort children. Meryl didn't have the energy to smack him.

"Abe told me." Livio spoke in a low voice so only she could hear. "I spoke to Panse, and he says he'll have to wrangle a few things and remove certain people from the duty roster. He'll meet us at Black Tomb Pass in three days time, and we'll follow Knives by air."

"Three days!" Meryl exclaimed in dismay.

"It's that or we steal a sand steamer and it takes us two weeks." Livio said grimly.

He gazed across at the children. Meryl knew none of them, and it seemed neither did Livio.

"Ah, here comes Mutare with the car now. "Travel with this lot Meryl. They'll need someone who doesn't look armed to the teeth watching them."

"Livio." Meryl said as intuition stung her. "What is Vash up to, and why are you so calm?"

"Nothing!" Livio said far too innocently for that to be the truth.

* * *

Vash, Livio and Lina had been pleasantly surprised to find Zachery waiting in the shade at the end of their long stair climb down. Avoiding the Terrans was annoyingly hard work.

"Livio." He said brusquely. "You'd best get to the orphanage and sort out which orphans are under your care. The Terrans want to be helpful to the Feds by delivering those they can to various cities."

"Bleeding, interfering…"

"I know what Master Rue said." Zachery interrupted quietly. "Glad to have you back."

"W-wha?" Vash protested.

Livio glanced at the plant.

"Ya know how the Eye of Michael are plant worshipers?"

"Y-yeah, but-"

"You do realise it's Knives at the top of the pile."

"Uh-"

"I basically told the Chief of the Eye of Michael that you're my plant, and I'm in charge of the December Chapterhouse."

Livio gave him a large grin and hurried over to the jeep Zachery had brought.

"What!" Vash exclaimed incredulously and sprinted after Livio.

Lina sidled up to Zachery and he slipped an arm around her.

"You're not teaching those kids to kill!" Vash protested.

Livio spun around peeved.

"You idiot! We're your damned chapterhouse, we're doing things your way!"

Vash stared at him, stunned.

"Love and peace." Livio grinned. "Ugh, Vash, stop crying! And you don't need to hug me! Get off!"

"Ow! Ow! Ow!"

Lina laughed and Zachery glanced down at her.

"Sorry, Vash!" Livio exclaimed.

Vash stared out past the jeep. From this vantage point he could see the passage Teres had taken away from the citadel, marked out by blood and bodies.

"Hey, man, are you ill?" Livio asked, worriedly at Vash's bleak expression.

"Go on ahead with Lina." Vash suggested. "Zachery, do you have something we can use as a shovel?"

Between himself and Zachery, they gathered what remains they could find of the five men of the Eye of Michael and buried them together. They found the place where Master Rue had fallen, and enough blood to make his death sure. However, there were heavy footprints in the sand and blood trail, to show that somehow, even after an encounter with a furious plant, he still lived.


	50. Chapter 50

**Chapter 50**

Vash dozed in the back seat of the very battered jeep as Livio drove. Meryl, Calor and Abe had gone ahead with the Terrans two days before. Vash glanced at the back of Livio 's head. They had left the orphanage under the care of Mutare, Melanie as well as several of Zachery's men. Livio had rejoined the Eye of Michael, and somehow thought he, Vash the Stampede, his superior. Vash felt a fresh wave of panic at that. Oh man, he could not protect people. Hadn't Livio seen his abysmal record? Why did the man have such faith in him? He gazed up at the stars. Oh Rem, why was it the more he cared the more it hurt? She had fought and protected him in her own way, how could he do any less for those she had died to save?

Vash shifted, giving up on all hope of sleep. He chased his more recent memories as he brushed tears away. The Terran Panse had been true to his word and had left that evening with a ship full of children to be returned to their various cities. That left a full hundred and twenty four orphans back at December, most of them augmented in some way and still in need of medical care. Livio had somehow seen it that Dr Kelvogh was in charge of the medical facility. The way the doctor kowtowed to every eyebrow twitch Livio shot in his direction, there was no doubt who he now served. However, the reactions of the doctor and his staff to him walking into the ward had almost made Vash physically sick. They had pulled everyone out of his way and left Livio to intercede with him. It took a moment for Vash to realise that this was how they had treated Knives. He clenched his fist, sometimes he just wanted to pound his brother into oblivion. Vash sat up in the back of the car and let out a shuddering breath. He began inspecting their weapons just to have something to do. Thinking was making him morose.

The routine calmed him slightly. He smiled as he recalled how Livio had gone quiet as he had watched Miss Jasmine of the Octovern orphanage directing the Earth Federation Peace Forces as to what to do with the children. Bill now acted as her bodyguard, though the Terran's had confiscated his gun. They were safe, which freed them to go after Teres.

Vash finished loading his revolver and the speed loaders then checked the ammunition for Livio's semi automatics.

"There." Livio pointed.

They gazed out at a flickering light on the side of a tall dune. Vash smiled slightly as Calor's voice slipped through his thoughts.

(You're in range. Good. Don't come here by the main street, they have you and your brother as wanted criminals. Meet us at that dodgy Saloon we visited the last time.)

.

It was four in the morning when they walked up to the saloon. A small figure in white was sitting on the front steps watching the street. Vash felt his treacherous heart reach out to her; she looked so tiny and fragile. He felt a welling of warmth inside. She would undoubtedly slap him if he tried hugging her. He grinned mischievously and picked up his pace passed Livio. He was a little startled when Meryl leaped up and ran to them as soon as they came in to view in the moonlight at the end of the road. He forgot his mischief when he saw the silvery tears on her cheeks. He panicked slightly as she grabbed his arm and stared up at him as if he were all that anchored her in this world.

"Will Knives kill Milly?"

Vash closed his eyes as the whole world ground to a halt around him. He blew out a breath and crouched down beside Meryl so he could look her in the eyes.

"I don't know."

She nodded, her bottom lip trembling, even though she was giving him one of her fiercest stares. He put his hand over hers, dismayed to find she was trembling. He felt a hollow ringing inside him. She feared him still. He took a shuddering breath to focus. He would leave her when this crisis was over. It was not fair to force her to withstand his presence that reminded her of so many dreadful things. How had Milly come to be mixed up with Knives' crew? Milly hadn't been anywhere near them when they had stumbled across Knives and his people. Or had she been exploring the ship?

"Vash?"

She clenched her small hand around the folds on the shoulder of his coat. He released her hand not wanting to trap her.

"Knives is not acting like his usual self." Livio said slowly, as if thinking through his words. "Perhaps he will keep her hostage?"

Vash stood up again and she released her grip on him.

"Tell me what happened."

"Panse?" Vash murmured gazed back over the town. Sure enough, out on the plain was a grey ship.

"You're not going to the Terrans!" Livio hissed. "Not now!"

"No. I shall go after the first sun rises." Vash said with a smile.

"They're going to take you in for the bounty."

"Perhaps." Vash mused. "But they have the track on Milly, who is with Knives, who seems to know where the Exitalis is. We have been waiting for that chance. We can't miss it."

Livio was silent.

"Vash, you can't sacrifice your life and freedom for my kids."

Vash raised an eyebrow and grinned at him.

"Are you saying I was wrong to save you?"

"Ah, er, that's different. Heat of the moment decision…"

"Don't worry about me. Think about how you're going to deal with Johnston."

"What? I thought you were after Johnston! Are you going after Knives again?"

"No. Someone will have to deal with Agone Zolfilian."

"We don't know anything about him!"

"Yes we do."

They both turned to find Abe, and a familiar short man standing beside him. Vash's grin broadened.

"Panse! We haven't seen you in ages!"

"Good to see you, young man." Panse greeted him. "Mora has been telling me about this latest mess."

"It's Abe Jefferson." Abe said tiredly as if he had been repeating this a lot recently. "Just Abe will do."

"Aside from going on about his name, he has a very interesting tale to tell about what the Terrans have done to this world."

"Don't tell me you didn't know!" Livio spat. "They've sophisticated the underworld to the point I hardly recognise it!"

"So I have learned. They appear to have a certain goal in mind. I thought this time we could talk about outcomes before you vanish on us."

"I make no promises." Vash said quietly.

"I ask none, my boy. I simply thought sharing a few pieces of information would be prudent."

"What would that be?" Livio demanded.

"Firstly, my condolences." Panse gave Livio a slight bow.

"How did you know about me?" Livio scowled at him.

"Chronica mailed me the details a few months back. She only mailed me the key to the encryption a few days ago. It came from a timed-release server, which suggests she had it set up in case of her untimely death. What she had to say backed up the tales Mora –"

"Abe."

"-Abe, has to tell. I learned then that she had children and that you were the father. Of all the young men she could have encountered, I am glad it is you. They will need your strength."

Livio stared incredulously at Panse.

"Are you sure he's Terran?" He asked Abe. "They're all such bastards."

"Smooth Livio." Abe said snidely. "He's trying to help."

"I understand you have had less than stellar treatment at the hands of my fellows, though you apparently married one?"

"Sorry." Livio rolled his eyes and grinned at the contradiction.

"About the information. I need to explain something top secret."

Beside Panse, Abe indicated with his thumb that this was something that needed to be heard.

"There was a project started back on Earth, oh, half a century ago. It has many names, but the 'Navigators' is probably the most descriptive. As plants are the only beings that can navigate a ship through warp, one relies heavily on independent plants to man and operate the warp capable star ships. The Navigators project was one to get humans to do the same. They tried interbreeding with plants, but their children, as Mora says he has informed you, do not carry the necessary abilities. But this project was about not relying on the plants, they wanted some bodily enhancement that allowed humans to do the same. They came to this world, not seeking minerals, though that is always a scan we do on any new world, no they came seeking technology. In particular biological technology and this world, as poor and desperate as it was, had found a solution. It could never have happened on any Federation world, the laws would have forbidden the horrors the inhabitants of this world have been subjected to. But what is done, is done, and the results are amazing. I was especially keen to meet you, Livio, as I hear you have been through one of the most rigorous genetic alteration programs and survived."

"It has its consequences." Livio growled, irked that Panse found the whole thing worthy of admiration. "I will die before I turn fifty. My Master only lived till his forties."

"Ah." Panse gave a grave nod. "What do you gentlemen say about going to find Mister Agone Zolfilian? Meryl is keen to be off, her friend Milly Thompson is headed in the same direction."

"You're chasing Knives?" Vash's eyes lit up.

"Yes, you can deal with your brother if the opportunity arises." Panse said. "For the next forty eight hours, I will somehow forget that there is a bounty on your head. Perhaps that will begin in part to repay the damage my people have done to the heart of this world."

Vash smiled.

"They're No Man's Lander's now. They've been here longer than two years. Isn't that enough time to settle into a new place?"

"If Mora and Chronica are anything to go by." Panse nodded.

"Abe!" Abe sighed.

"Good." Vash grinned.

"You got any whiskey on that ship of yours or do we have to wake the barkeeper before we leave?" Livio asked.

* * *

Meryl paced. It was different travelling by flying ship. She walked from one porthole to the next, watching the same blue grey landscape go by beneath them. Two of the moons were up, but they were thin crescents and their light only cast dim shadows on the dunes below. Vash was asleep, sprawled out over the sofa, his long legs dangling over the edge of the edge. Livio and Abe sat hunched at a terminal squinting at the screen and reading more swiftly than she knew she could. Calor had curled up on the seat underneath the largest porthole and was staring at the land outside. Panse had allowed them this small lounge, perhaps to keep them away from the rest of his crew, as some like Emma were more than a little antagonistic towards Vash. She watched him sleep, wondering how he managed it. She was too worried about Milly to settle. She crossed the lounge to Vash and stroked his hair out of his eyes. Even his eyebrows were black. She caught Calor's eye, then realised what she was mouthing and blushed to the roots of her hair. She snatched her hand back and paced on. Kiss him? Wha- no, had Calor really whispered that? Now? No, she must have imagined it. She glanced at Calor again; the plant rolled her eyes in an exaggerated fashion and made to fall over sideways in frustration. Yes, she had. Meryl hunched her shoulders and shot her a furious glare, all the fiercer for the blush she felt on her cheeks. Calor gave her a thoughtful stare, then gazed speculatively at Vash. A look of pure mischief appeared on her face then. Meryl did not know how she crossed the room so fast, but she found herself pushing Calor back into the window seat.

"Stay away from him." She growled in an undertone as Abe glanced back at them questioningly.

"It's okay Meryl, we'll find Milly." Calor said aloud and put her arm around her. Then she murmured in her ear. "And Vash is fair game from the moment we free the twins."

Meryl clawed her hands into fists as Calor sinuously lounged back into the seat and seemed very pleased with herself. She had no chance if Calor seriously wanted Vash. Drops of acidic jealousy ate away at her heart, only she could not ignore this and find some paperwork to sooth her. There was no paperwork to do and the trouble was Calor had the best chance. Oh, but she was not going to let that defeat her. She would find a way to capture his attention first. She went to sit on the armrest of Vash's couch blocking him from view. It was very disconcerting that Calor did not look her way again, as if she had disregarded her as a rival.

.

The skies were hazy over the desert where they came in low over the mountains. Panse's crew was mostly flying by radar as dust reduced visibility to two hundred yarz at best.

"They've landed." Came the report over the intercom, then another voice chimed in immediately after it. "We've got company, commander! It's another one of the native crafts!"

They trooped up to the command room, and Panse waved them in despite Emma's protests.

Livio was already at the large window, leaning on the console to stare out. Meryl peered past his bulk to see a stubby craft already circling the skies in the area. Vash put his hands on their shoulders and stuck his face in between them to get a look out. Meryl glanced down to make sure, he had such dexterous control over his prosthetic she couldn't tell the difference between it and his real hand.

"Seeds!" Vash exclaimed delighted.

"What are they doing here? How did they know to come?" Livio asked.

Panse gave them a peculiar stare when they turned to him for explanations.

"Surely you know I would not authorize a maneuver of this magnitude without bringing in the balance of power? Better them than the Feds who shoot first and ask questions later."

"You've been in contact with Seeds this whole time?" Meryl said incredulously.

"They've been in contact with us, seeing as they thought we would best know how to handle our people." Panse smiled. "This is fortunate, as we did not anticipate the involvement of Millions Knives, or the Sandworms in this endeavour. Had the Feds been here they would have blasted them out of the skies whether or not your friend's life was at stake."

"You take a dim view of the Fed's capabilities." Livio said with a wry smile.

"They have their uses." Panse said circumspectly. "But policing an open frontier like this land is is near impossible. Which, in the case of yourself and your friend in the red coat there, is advantageous."

"I don't have any wanted posters out for me." Livio protested.

"Not Federal perhaps, but there are several bounties on your head regardless."

Livio raised an eyebrow above his tattooed eye, the effect was impressive. That meant that this Terran knew of the inner conflicts of the Eye of Michael. What else had Chronica told him? He had never considered his wife as a liability before and felt a seething loathing at the possibility rise to the surface.

"We've been watching the Eye of Michael since certain members of the Terran society decided to take over their biolabs. You're one of the specimen cases they study." Panse said with a sad expression on his face. "There is a billion bounty on your head for you dead and a ten billion for you alive. They want your body to further their experiments."

"Is that what they have been after my arse for?" Livio grinned with relief. "I thought it was defection. Haha, bring it on!" He interlaced his fingers and cracked his knuckles. "I'm getting a little out of practice minding kids all day."

There was silence.

"What?" Livio asked mischievously. "You have to know the edge of death to truly know what it is to live!"

He caught Vash's expression then.

"Oi! Vash." He slung his arm around his friend's shoulders. "Don't give me that pained look. I know Nicholas was like that too."

"I was not thinking of Wolfwood. I was thinking of you." Vash said and clapped Livio on the shoulder. "We'll get your kids back."

They landed in a wide canyon two iles away from where Knives had landed his ship.

"He knows we're here." Vash said almost to himself as he stood at the top of the ships exit ramp and looked south east into the dust haze.

"Good." Panse remarked. "Then he'll be alert. We don't want him surprised by the Exitalis crew."

"The Exitalis is near here?" Livio said with wild hope. He squinted into the dust, his eye giving him readouts of at least seven potential outposts of civilization over the plain that he dust haze hid. Three were the size to potentially be crashed ships. He sought out plant orb readings and grabbed Vash's arm.

"Vash, there are over a thousand plant orbs out there."

"I know." Vash smiled slightly. "I can hear them. They know Knives is here and are restless. They do not trust him as they once did."

"You can communicate with them from here?" Panse glanced at Abe for confirmation.

"I know they're there, I can't talk to them like he can." Abe explained. "They're mistrustful of me for some reason."

"No. I can't talk to them from here." Vash clarified. "We can share emotions at this distance. A sense of unease and I know they fear the re-emergence of a fused entity."

Vash walked on down the ramp and Livio followed his face suddenly creased with worry. He scuffed the sand with his boots as he caught up to his friend.

"Oi, Vash."

"Hmm?"

"My kids could do it, they don't have limiters. Abe and I were discussing it on the flight out."

Vash smiled.

"Yes, they could, they are together a part entity already."

Livio punched him.

"That's nothing to be happy about."

Vash grinned with a broader smile.

"Yes it is. It means they are developing as plants. Allow them the power they were born with and they will not be ashamed of it. That was my fault, being ashamed of what I was. No, not shame, but fearing what I was. I still fear myself, but I have seen Abe and the Terran plants, they have a self assured freedom to their hearts that I will never have. Your children have it from Chronica's legacy. Allow them to be who they are."

"I can't stop them if they go rogue." Livio said softly, raw terror in his eyes.

"But will they?" Vash asked. "I've travelled with them, and they showed more mettle than Knives and I did as kids."

"They saw their mother murdered. I'm afraid for what will happen. I know what I'm capable of, and they have more than enough of me in their makeup to make it dangerous."

"Livio?" Vash interrupted his worrying.

"Yes?" Livio glanced up to see Vash staring out at the haze made golden by the setting suns.

"Let's leave the backup team to do their stuff. We've got business out on the plain."

Livio grinned broadly.

"Finally! I hate group work."

* * *

Meryl was relieved to rejoin the Seeds group. She liked the Terrans under Panse, but she trusted the people of Seeds to root for Vash. Abe walked behind her as if he were her bodyguard, and no one questioned him, except for Emma who glared after him in suspicion. Brad grinned at him.

"Abe! Welcome. And I remember some of you." He greeted the Terrans who had followed them. "Commander Panse, wasn't it?"

"Captain Bradley?"

"Just Brad." Brad said with a shrug. "We heard Vash was with you, only…" He gazed out into the dust haze that did not reveal a tall spiky haired man in a red coat.

"He sneaked off again." Meryl interjected, peeved. Although part of her was cheering them on for skipping the politics and going to heart of the trouble.

"What do we need to do?" Brad asked.

"Organise some backup." Meryl said before Panse opened his mouth.

"Perhaps." Panse countered gently. "Though a plant is an army all of their own. I would council looking to our own agendas while they serve theirs. I assume they are rescuing the children?"

Meryl nodded.

"Well, that takes a load off our shoulders. We Terran's have an interest in the Exitalis, as it is said to be the main base of a crime syndicate targeting Independent plants. We have arrest warrants for several Terran persons involved. We would like to see to their trials as a matter of urgency."

"You want to extract your people alive?" Brad said and pulled out the blaster at his side. "This has a stun setting." It was not set to stun.

"What is your purpose here?" Panse asked rather politely considering Brad's unspoken threat.

"There have been raids by the Sandworms on our settlements. It is rumoured that their leader is here. You must have seen the posters for the Chieftain. All we have been able to discover is that he has three lieutenants who do his every bidding. The Feds want them because they take out settlements. They just leave the entire village intact and steal the people. Very eerie. Two months ago, we lost a caravan of thirty-two to them and are looking for our people. We have tracked their ship to this region, and were certainly surprised to find you here with this operation swinging in to action. We'd gladly assist if you'd help us with the Sandworms."

"You do know that Millions Knives is the Chieftain?" Abe asked.

There was silence as Brad and Panse took in the news aghast.

"That would explain a great deal." Brad spat bitterly. "I know he is Vash's brother, but this world would be better off with him dead."

"Vash does not seem to think so." Meryl said quietly. "And I'd be inclined to agree with Vash."

Brad gaped incredulously at her.

"You lived through the last war. How can you possibly say that?" He asked.

"Perhaps because she trusts Vash the Stampede." Luida stepped down the ships ramp and came to stand beside Brad who towered over her.

"I trust him. I don't trust his brother. I tell you this world would be better off with him six feet under."

"His judgment of the situation may differ from ours, but he cannot be said to be foolish or untrustworthy." Luida said quietly. "If he let Knives live, there must be a reason. He is not incapable of killing when necessity requires it."

Brad scowled at the floor. Meryl felt a stab of pity for the man as she recognized the same conflict she felt in her own heart. Vash, who had been so adamantly against killing, had done so. It had shaken many. Though she understood that death was sometimes required, that did not mean that life was not still precious and to be fought for. Brad, it seemed, had not been able to articulate his confusions to himself. He fairly bristled with anger, though he kept it to quiet.

"You don't think Millions Knives is behind the plant orb thefts do you?" Panse mused, glancing at Luida.

The small woman pursed her lips and gazed out into the haze.

"A fused entity would be Knives' only recourse to power at this point in his life." She said gravely.

"I have to alert my people if we're facing the possibility of another fused entity." Panse reached for his communicator on his belt.

"It was Johnston who was stealing the orbs the last time we looked." Meryl said. "So perhaps it is not Knives who is trying for a fused entity, but this Agone."

"He can't." Abe interrupted. "Unless he has found a neurosurgeon out here in the desert who will remove the limiter from his brain."

"He isn't registered as a plant, remember?" Meryl pointed out.

"This could be very bad." Abe frowned out at the haze. "Both Knives and Agone could go up against each other with impunity if they were to summon plants in this region. I can sense several hundred sister plants out there."

"Most are encased in single orbs since the great dome was deemed too much of a temptation for unlimited independents." Luida said.

"That made no difference to Knives." Abe flicked his fingers and light shimmered above them, catching the edges of very fine blades he produced, then assimilated once more.

"So we're looking at a battleground." Luida said what the others had come to realize with sinking dread.

"We are ready for war should it come to that." Emma said over Panse's shoulder.

"And risk a quarter of the plants on this planet?" Luida said softly.

"Vash has decided that." Abe said. "Or rather Knives, he led us here. When it comes to plant protection, I would trust both of them over Agone and Teres. Both have shown a certain disregard for our sisters."

Luida gazed at him.

"And you? What would you say?"

Abe threw back his shoulders and clenched his fists.

"A chance, just a chance, to bloody up Teres a bit, and I'll be happy."

"Mora, you're not authorised to take independent action." Emma snapped at him.

Abe shrugged as if her words had little hold on him, Emma's eyes narrowed.

"As for my sister plants, I'd say call in all your forces and get them out. They should not be in the possession of such scum."

As he was speaking, a rumbling broke the silence and a dust-defined line of three jeeps drove into view at a ludicrous speed.

Brad and Emma raised their binoculars.

"Who called the Feds?" Emma snapped, glaring at Brad.

"Not us! We're not exactly under their jurisdiction." He protested.

"There is only one person here who is." Panse murmured, glancing at Meryl.

"Me? Why would I want the Feds involved? I'll have to run diversions to get them away from Vash. Who summoned them?"

After a swift round of denials, they realised none present had done so.

Panse and Luida walked away from the ship towards the road and their respective bodyguards followed.

.

"Meryl."

She glanced up at Abe who was watching the back of Emma's head speculatively. The Earth Federation Peace Force guard was intent on the Feds arrival, her fingers on the trigger of her blaster.

"I'd say this is our exit cue unless you've got enough money to post my bail? Or enough time to be cross questioned as to where Vash is."

She gave a short nod and they slipped away.

"We've got to get Milly." She whispered as they hastened out of easy hailing distance.

"Mmh." Abe grunted. His heading was set for Knives' ship.

"They're going after Agone." Abe nodded in the direction Livio and Vash had gone. "Have you seen Calor? Fifth Moon needs to stay out of the reach of the Feds."

They looked around for Calor, but she was already gone.

"Hah! She was always smarter than me." Abe chuckled.

Vash and Livio hurried through the dust haze, certain they could not be seen. Vash was still cautious as he knew they could be tracked. At the very least the Seeds people could trace him somewhat with the earpiece if he tried to contact them.

They headed towards the greatest concentration of plant orbs; there they knew they would discover the Exitalis.


	51. Chapter 51

**_Chapter 51_**

Panse stood in the control room and watched the heat signatures of five figures walk across the plain.

"Are you just going to let them go? They all but used us as a _taxi_ service!" Emma protested furiously.

"They perhaps have a greater chance of success than we do in the endeavors they are attempting. A show of strength would provoke them and force them to a siege footing. They are some of the most experienced operatives on this planet; let's let them do what they can for now, eh?"

"Mora? An experienced operative?" Emma exclaimed incredulously.

"He was running a gang of outlaws before he encountered Fifth Moon." Panse smiled. "And he survived, on this world where the survival rate is less than three weeks for an amateur and less than two days for an alien."

"I knew him in basic training!" Emma protested. "He was one of those, those, over educated _dandies_ who fussed at getting his hands dirty and used his plant powers whenever he could."

"Perhaps he has matured here." Panse mused. "People do change, sometimes for the better."

"I'd still not trust my life to him." Emma scowled.

Panse gave her a nod as the Seeds ship hailed them.

"Brad!" Panse smiled. "I see you too managed to fob off the Feds."

Brad rolled his eyes.

"Luida did it. She's still out there. I still have a bone to pick with you." Brad glared levelly at him.

"You let Vash the Stampede walk out into the desert alone!"

Panse shrugged.

"He thought Livio fair company."

Brad raised an eyebrow.

"Ah."

"They'll raise hell and we'll step in to pick up the pieces, what say you?"

"Why do they always _do_ this?" Brad smacked the consol in front of him in fury. "We're _trying_ to help!"

"Ah, but our help should come when they need it and not before."

Brad scowled and muttered something about hogging the glory.

"Or death." Panse murmured. "This is a plant war, Brad. We can only do so much. And I can say this much for your world, you have it rough, and your techniques are unusual, but they somehow work."

"You mean Vash the Stampede just wings it and hopes it works." Brad grumbled with a slightly proud grin.

Panse grinned back.

* * *

Meryl fretted about Calor as she hurried through the choking dust. Had she followed Vash? Why had she gone off without saying anything? What were her plans? Would she keep her promise and only ask Vash afterwards?

"Calm down Meryl." Abe murmured as he turned back to her. His handkerchief covered his face and only his pale eyes were visible. He looked amused at something.

Meryl bit her lip in fury. How _dare_ he sense her confusion and jealousy like that? The audacity!

"Get your empathy away from me." She grouched.

Abe shook his head, indicating that that was impossible, and turned back to walking.

"Ya'know, this dust is _very_ annoying." He said conversationally.

"It's not bad." Meryl shrugged; glad to be on another topic. "It's not too windy. It isn't trying to sandblast your skin off. We don't have to wear goggles yet."

"We didn't bring goggles."

"I know. Let's hope the wind doesn't pick up. However, this is good. It will keep the Feds from bringing in their long-range guns. They go by line of sight."

"You'd think they would have had the use of radar." Abe marveled.

"Fortunately for us, the ground troops don't. Are you sure you're going the right way?" All Meryl could see was sand and dust.

"I'm following Milly." Abe pointed ahead of him.

All she could do was follow. She stepped in his footsteps; it made walking in the sand easier. Abe knew where Milly was, did that follow that Vash knew where _she_ was? Perhaps he had never looked. Her heart twisted with pain at that idea.

"We'll find her. It's going to be alright Meryl." Abe said, misunderstanding.

"Shut up." Meryl grouched, cringing that he knew how vulnerable she felt.

She almost walked into the back of him when he stopped and turned and landed a large hand on top of her head.

"Meryl Stryfe. That stubbornness is good when you're dealing with a difficult client. But if you ever are half so rude to me again I might just let slip what you are really thinking to those you brush off so harshly."

"Abe! … "

"No. You're feeling scared and helpless and take it out on others with bravado and bluster. Next time, do us all a favor and _be honest_."

"Fine! I'll stand here and cry! Good lot that will do!"

Abe grabbed her in a rough hug; she endured it like a floppy rag doll.

"We've handled worse. We'll get through this."

It was as he continued to trudge through the sand that she realized how envious she was of Milly. She kept forgetting how dangerously insightful Abe's talents made him. He knew she had a shine for Vash, but he had let her do her own thing. Unlike Calor. No, she needed to put that thought away; she was here to rescue Milly.

* * *

Calor had sensed the presence of the First Leader the moment they had landed. She slipped away silently, this was not a moment she could afford to pass up again. She loped across the sand, trying to put as much distance between the ship and the inevitable meeting point as she could. Sensing the worm's approach, she clambered up onto a tall rock. Sure enough a few minutes later, the First Leader of the Sandworms appeared, atop his worm.

"You, Calor, will accompany me to the ship. We have a bargain to fulfil."

"Hmm." Calor eyed him, making it clear it was her choice and none of his dictate, and certainly none of his Chieftains. Also, it would cut out two iles of walking. But woe betide Millions Knives if he so much as thought he could keep her from going after Teres.

She took the man's offer and leaped out to the Sandworm. It was merely a matter of keeping her balance as the worm undulated across the sand. She hated sand, she decided. It got everywhere and travel across it was arduous. The worms made it seem easy.

Meryl and Abe found Calor's tracks, headed not for the Exitalis, but towards the location of Knives's ship.

"Calor." Abe murmured agonised, his eyes seeking to see through the sand veil around him. "What are you doing?"

"What can you sense?" Meryl asked worriedly. What was Calor thinking, _voluntarily_ going towards Knives?

"Determination." Abe shrugged and then tugged his scarf tighter over his mouth.

"You don't think she's going to try and make a deal with Knives, do you?"

Abe gave a huff, then rounded on Meryl.

"What if what she's determined to do upsets Knives? Has she not read the accounts? He's a cold blooded murderer! What if he kills Milly?"

Meryl smiled beneath the hood she wore; relieved she was not the only one thinking such things.

"You're not worried about Calor?"

"Calor's a plant. She at least has a chance against Knives. What does Milly have?"

"The fact that she's Vash's friend." Meryl said. It was the only hope they had.

"Wouldn't he kill her sooner then?" Abe fretted. "There's no love lost between those brothers."

"Not if he has a plan for her. Can't you sense her?"

Abe blinked then turned away sheepishly.

"She's not afraid, she's curious about something."

"So she's not in immediate danger."

"No. But let's hurry, or Calor might tip the scales." Abe picked up the pace.

* * *

The ship was waiting in the lee of a rocky outcrop. The First Leader set her down and motioned to the door. He then turned away, the worm almost gliding across the desert into the rising dust haze. She marched across to the ship. Two men dressed in black stood at the door. They ignored her as she ignored them. Once on board she found there were two passages. She took the one to the left and found her way to the room where Milly had filmed the meeting. She found Milly's hiding hole easily and opened it. The girl was not there. She scowled.

"Miss Calor?"

She turned, and was relieved to find Milly hefting her stun gun from a more defensible spot behind the couch on the far side of the room. Then again, no place was really defensible from a plant that wanted one dead.

"I'm the rescue party. C'mon Milly."

It was easiest saying it that way. Good-hearted trusting Milly took her words to heart. They reached the entrance ramp. The two men in black still stood there. She walked Milly over to the base of the ramp.

"Go that way!" Calor pointed back the way she had come. "Meryl and Abe are out there, headed this way. See you find them."

There was a click then a whine of hydraulics. Calor felt the ramp rise under her feet. She pushed Milly out of the way of the ramp.

"What about you, Miss Calor?" Milly asked, her eyes widening.

"I have a matter to discuss with Knives." She retreated back across the rapidly rising ramp. "And you were my ticket to see him. Now go before you make me look like a liar."

"But Miss Calor!" Milly exclaimed, becoming almost hysterical. "He's Knives!"

Calor turned and smiled slightly. The woman knew nothing of power. She would need his to defeat Teres.

"I know. Now go!" She ducked and almost tumbled down the steep angle of the rising ramp.

* * *

Eventually a dark shadow that was not a tall rock or Mesa formation emerged from the haze. Meryl broke into a run as she recognised the outline of a ship. The only warning she had was the shudder at her feet. She leaped back, stumbled and rolled to her feet again. The ground before her parted like a fountain of sand and a worm rose up, a familiar man standing on its head.

"You!" He exclaimed staring at Meryl in disgust. "I should have known with all the trouble."

Meryl grimaced to return the same sentiments to the First Leader of the Sandworms.

"We are not here to trouble the sandworms." Abe explained. "We have business with Millions Knives."

"So do many this day." He grouched as if he included himself.

"We need to go on board; we're looking for my friend Milly." Abe said.

Meryl flinched at Abe's honesty.

The Leader of the Sandworms jerked his thumb in the opposite direction.

"This really scary woman plant came and took her. Gave the boss a right telling off." He paused, gazing at the wall of dust blurring out the landscape in that direction. "Mighty fine woman, that one. Somehow, the boss didn't kill her. They went that way."

Meryl felt her heart constrict. She had forgotten about Calor in that moment. Had the Sandworms asked her personally? How had Calor found out that Knives wanted to see her, neither she nor Abe had mentioned it. What was she playing at provoking Knives? Then something the Leader of the Sandworms had said registered.

"They?" Meryl felt her voice squeak in terror. "You mean Knives is with them?"

"Yes. I'm just the messenger." He gave them a stare with his strange yellow eyes. "This is worm territory, do not cross the sands."

The worm sank below the surface and oddly the man vanished with them.

Meryl shuddered and searched the air for insects. She then realized that they would find it difficult out in the storm. Another advantage of dust then.

"What do we do?" Abe asked, staring at the ground where the worm had sunk.

"We cross the sand." Meryl grinned mirthlessly at him.

.

Three iles. Meryl had forgotten how long a walk three iles was. With the dust disorientating her sense of distance, she felt she must have walked at least ten. But she was glad of the distance, because it took them out of the line of sight of the Seeds, Panse's Terrans and the Feds. Especially the Feds, as the wind began to die down and the dust settle towards noon. They turned back when they stood on the crest of the dune and found they could see the whole horizon. They had come from an outcropping of Mesa structures, and to the south lay a circle of hills which fed into mountains. It was there as they stood peering out that they caught the light reflecting off power plant globes. They could see three settlements; the closest was visible only by tents surrounding an invisible structure.

"That there would be the Exitalis." Abe pointed.

Meryl nodded. She could see the Exitalis, or rather where the Exitalis hid. What was more urgent to her mind, was the army. There were no Federal troops here yet. The gathering were mercenaries and soldiers affiliated to the Terrans, all hastily manning the minimal fortifications to their city and ship. They somehow sought to defend themselves and their city from the seething mass of Sandworms, their insidious flies and the people they enslaved.

"Milly's in there." She half sobbed, to herself, she realized. Abe was already half flying down the dune towards them.

* * *

The dust gradually settled as the morning wore on, but the calm that followed was not reassuring. It was the heat that was getting to Vash. This was sand storm weather if ever he knew it. What rotten luck. He glanced across at Livio who was eyeing the skies with a slightly sour expression. He gave Vash a brief nod.

"Do you think those Terrans and Seeds people have any idea what's about to hit them?"

"The Satellite should announce it." Vash shrugged. "They like to keep track of such things."

"It's nearly the end of June." Livio grumbled. "This one is going to have that insidious dust."

They both observed the ship and the tent city that lay in the valley below them.

"On the plus side it will keep everyone indoors." Livio remarked.

"We don't want everyone indoors." Vash protested. "We want them out!"

They trudged down the dunes, bypassing the largest section of the tented city that stretched out at the mouth of the valley in a wagon wheel fashion around a central water fountain. Their heading was a conspicuously empty area amid a densely populated one.

They arrived at the heart of the tent city surrounding the invisible ship, covered in dust, sweat caking it to their hair and faces. They were among hundreds of such individuals wandering through the rows of tents. Livio sidled up to Vash.

"This place is _crawling_ with bounty hunters. Did someone tip them off?"

"No." Vash said bleakly. "There is money to be had, this is Johnston's hideout. He collects lowlifes to do his business."

"Yeah, I ran into a few of them." Livio rubbed at a remembered wound. "Maybe I'll get lucky and run into them again." He grinned maliciously.

"Hey! You're new here!"

Livio raised his hat and stared up at a man with an eyepatch sitting on a large rock beside the road. As the road was lined with tents, this was the most stable structure for yarz around.

"Yup." Livio grinned. "Heard there was a little cash to be had for kids."

The man looked at him as if he were dirt.

"When do you expect your caravan in?" The man asked.

"Not likely to tell you, am I?" Livio replied. "I don't want it mislaying its cargo en route."

They scowled at each other for a moment.

"I have pressing business elsewhere. A pity, we could have done some negotiations, you and I." Livio dug in his pocket and Vash stared at the solid bundle of double dollars the man displayed and idly peeled off twenty dollar notes.

"But you clearly are disinclined to help me, so my partner and I'll be off. Thanks."

He pocketed the money. They made it ten yarz before a thick group surrounded them.

"Yer money."

Livio raised his hands slightly as the speaker had a knife nudging the skin by his kidney.

"In my pocket."

They relieved him of the fold of money and instantly a fight started among those squabbling for a share. Divested of his rewards, the robber tried to take out his frustrations on Livio.

"That's not very nice."

The man dropped the knife with an inelegant squeak as Vash squeezed his hand.

"You're spoiling it." Livio grumbled.

"You _wanted_ a fight?" Vash exclaimed incredulously.

"Yes." Livio twisted around and chopped his hand down on the pressure point on the robbers neck. He went down stunned. Vash let him slump to the floor.

"I'm just going to get my money back. Have a look around and see if you can find any leads on where to get kids."

Vash had personal experience with some very dirty knife fights in the more desperate towns he had drifted through. Yet watching Livio, who moved with lightning speed and merciless precision, made it seem a dance almost; he knifed those who tried to knife him and punched those who tried to punch him. In a matter of seconds he was overwhelmed by a writhing pile of fifteen men who were particularly keen to keep their money. Vash took an anxious step towards him to see if he could drag him out. He was halted by the furious roar someone let off and the shouts and cries of pain. Livio emerged with a bloodied nose and most of his cash in a bundle. He left a pile of groaning men behind him in the road. He grinned at Vash as he pocketed his cash.

"C'mon." He said nasally, and wiped the blood off on his sleeve.

Vash trailed after him smiling at what Livio clearly considered petty amusement.

"I did it your way." Livio added as Vash kept staring over his shoulder at the men. "Didn't kill anyone." He pinched his nose and tilted his head back slightly. "We won't be bothered much today. Tonight might be another story." He shrugged.

"Why?"

"It's quicker than having to dodge people trying to poke your kidneys all day. We'll be watched, but avoided for a few hours."

"But, but you waded into it!"

"Better than a day in hospital worrying about a kidney stab." He grinned. "That happened to Master C the last time we were in one of these camps. They clubbed me unconscious. They _tried_ to chain me like a slave, only I got loose, freed all the other captives and set fire to the quartermasters stores. I had to sit with Master C for a whole half day while his kidneys recovered. He was so irritated he tracked down the gang responsible and…" Livio trailed off realising he was talking to Vash and Vash's current expression was one of dismayed reproof. "Aah, never mind." He dabbed at his nose with his hand, smearing blood all over his fingers. "Let's get this over with." He put his good arm around Vash's shoulders and with his chin, pointed up at the invisible space the camp surrounded. "We need to crack that open."

* * *

Milly stared at Mister Knives, fascinated. She could not get her head around how similar he looked to Mister Vash. What was the strangest was that while he looked so like Mister Vash, he held himself so differently. A languid arrogance flowed out of every movement. He walked beside Miss Calor, and as Miss Calor had ordered her to follow her, Milly did so. She had the rather uncomfortable awareness that to do otherwise would be suicide.

She hefted her stun gun on her shoulder to a more comfortable position and wondered why she had not taken the opportunity to find Miss Meryl. She pouted. She had only stayed because she had been worried about Miss Calor. Only, it seemed Miss Calor could handle herself.

It had been what felt like an entire hour that she had waited outside the ship. Then, to her utter astonishment, Miss Calor had marched out with Mister Knives. The argument had been silent, but she could tell by their body language that there was some verbal fight. Only then Mister Knives had noticed her.

"What's that?" He asked, addressing Calor.

"That is a person, my name is Milly Thompson!" Milly snapped, furious at his rudeness. She blinked when suddenly Calor stood in front of her. Milly was astounded; she had not seen the plant move.

"Don't waste your energy on such pathetic mortals when there is true game to be had." Calor tilted her head challengingly at him.

Knives raised an eyebrow.

"You protect my brother's pets? Curious loyalty you have, Calor." He gazed thoughtfully at her, just a moment too long, then marched off. Calor turned curtly to Milly.

"You will follow, don't fall behind."

They climbed over the crest of the dune. Milly felt her mouth drop open. If Mister Vash was good at getting into the middle of disasters, Mister Knives was worse. Below them in the valley between them and the ship was an army. Yet unlike Mister Vash, Knives did not seek to go to the heart of the matter. He just bulldozed in. At the base of the dune the sandworms were gathering. The battle had already started, as she saw among black clothed people fighting the armed men among the tents.

"How dare they?" Knives breathed infuriated.

Calor glanced questioningly at him. Knives gestured to the people they were fighting.

"How _dare_ they steal the bioaugmentation that Conrad and I developed, and try use it against me!"

"Try." Calor picked out calmly. "Their success is still out for the jury."

Knives blinked at her, then turned to stare across the battle as if he sensed something.

"Millions Knives!" A great shout echoed across the valley.

They turned to see a group of warriors standing on the rocks at the entrance to the valley itself, the tent town between them.

"Teres Johnston." Knives said quietly, though it seemed Teres could hear him.

"I always wanted to meet you, after seeing your brother; I couldn't quite believe what foolishness had defeated us on landing here."

"I am not my brother." Knives said coldly.

"Clearly. Yet you come here to face me with no backup…"

"No?" Knives asked with mocking calm, his voice icy.

Teres laughed.

"The worms and those warriors, you really think they could match the power of a single plant?"

Knives smiled slightly, his eyes empty.

And then all hell broke loose. The last Milly could make out from Teres was a wild startled yell as worms who had burrowed under the sand erupted where he and his cronies has been standing. But the real power was wielded by the three Sandworm Leaders as a swarm of insects descended. Calor gave a yell and sprinted down the dune, Milly followed.


	52. Chapter 52

_**Chapter 52**_

Keeping up with Abe was all Meryl could do. She had forgotten how fast plants could move when the yen took them. He ploughed through the first ranks, and dodged around the rest. Meryl had to dart and dive to avoid the people spinning around to retaliate. Then the insects descended. Abe began to cuss in languages she had never heard and grabbed her arm to drag her after him. About her wavered what seemed to be a force field of sorts. It kept the insects off.

It was then that the Feds arrived. They fired two mortars into the middle of the mêlée. Meryl found herself thrown to the ground. Abe sat up groggily and fiercely shook his head. Others were doing the same, and those with some self-preservation took the opportunity to leave. She pushed herself upright and then saw that the Sandworms were leaving, or more precisely, chasing someone further up the valley. She waved Abe after her and ran as she recognised a distinctive green-mantled coat and a large stun gun.

* * *

"It will work!" Vash declared, half rising from where he sat on a metal beer keg in the afternoon sunlight.

"Declaring that you're Vash the Stampede will cause a riot!" Livio grabbed his arm and pulled him down. Vash pouted at him. "It would only draw more attention; we want the attention _away_ from us."

Livio took another sip of the rather fine beer sold by the tent pub whose beer garden they were currently visiting. Vash had been coming up with increasingly madder ideas as they had sat there in the sun.

"Ooh!" Vash sat up straight and pointed to the wired fence they were trying to think their way through. It separated the tented city from the invisible Terran ship.

"What's it now…" It was as far as he got.

A sandworm rose out of the dust beside the road. There was a stunned silence then screams and gunfire erupted. People surged away, trampling tents and falling over each other.

"C'mon!" Vash downed the last of his whiskey tot. Livio ran after him, considering genius of the very silly lid attached to the large tankard of beer he had ordered.

They dodged through the people, shoving away the panic-stricken and the crazed. They surged after those who saw an opportunity when they got one, to investigate just what it was the Terrans were hiding behind the fence. Livio winced as several ran full tilt into the force field without knowing it was there. He could see it, and by Vash's actions, it appeared he could sense it.

There were several gaps in the force field and the road lead up to the largest.

"This way!" He waved Vash after him as he dodged the spurt of gunfire that some ignoramus tried to use to crack the field.

The Sandworm could clearly not see the gaps as it dove again and rather comically slammed its head against the underside of the ship when coming up. Vash staggered to a halt, staring.

"Ow!" Livio winced as the whole ship rocked. He never knew the creatures were that strong. "This way!" He grabbed Vash's coat, but he dug his boots in and was not moving. He then saw what Vash had seen. The sandworms had not head butted the ship by mistake. They were laying mines.

"Run!"

Vash needed no encouragement.

The blast lifted them off their feet and slammed them into a half-fallen tent. Successive explosions dumped other tents, debris and sand on top of them. Livio pushed himself to his knees, surprised to find himself still clutching the beer tankard. He flipped the little lid open and laughed in the darkness. There was _still_ beer in it. He sat there drinking, listening to the groans around him. A small flame illuminated the space to reveal Vash lying on his back holding a lighter.

"You're sitting here _drinking_?" Vash laughed.

"Got lucky twice!" Livio grinned. "Not gonna let anything try for a third." He didn't mention the bloody cut on the side of his friend's face. He himself probably looked worse.

Vash tried to sit up, then frowned at the collapsed tent material that hid his lower body.

"My foot is pinned under a tent pole or something. Think you can shift it?"

Vash managed to sit up, then took his knife and began hacking at the tent above them, causing more sand to pour in on top of them, then blessedly, some sunlight.

Livio finished the beer and tipped the dregs out then tore open the gap Vash had cut. He emerged to desolation. Most of the tent city had been knocked flat in the blast.

There were plenty of stunned people wandering about, covered in dust and sand. There were also enough dead to make him very cautious. The Sandworms did not care who they killed. That would be just like Knives. He then noticed the dust cloud he had thought was the settling dust from the explosion was coming closer. He could count at least twelve sandworms.

"Vash we've got company!"

Vash was blindly trying to lift the ships door which had flattened twelve yarz of tents to the south of the road. Livio whistled through his teeth at how close they had been to being squashed dead.

"You'll have to dig your foot out!" He wormed his way back under the tents to where Vash had stopped pushing and was now digging franticly.

He pulled his leg free and hissed through his teeth as he put his weight on his ankle. But after gingerly limping a few steps and adjusting the straps on his boot he grinned.

"C'mon!" He took off at a loping run.

They were joined by the hardier opportunists in the camp. A Terran ship could make good looting, only Livio wondered what they would make of the lost technology as most No Man's Landers had never seen a computer let alone used one. He conveniently ignored the fact that the only reason he knew about them was that Vash had let him use the odd little pocket computer he had. That was the true treasure this ship held, that and the plant orbs. He watched a fight break out between two men who had both gone for the same supplies rack filled with blaster guns. Ah, yes, they would take what they recognised.

They headed for the brig. Vash was good at dodging patrols, and they made it down with only a few scuffles. From the thumps and explosions happening on the upper levels, he was not surprised to find the place unguarded. Vash called up the images of the cells in the detainment areas.

"Hah!" Livio pointed. There were three plant containment cells active.

Vash looked a little melancholy as he dragged his finger across the cells and a word flickered at the bottom of the screen.

"Access denied. Unauthorised Access Detected."

"Aw screw that." Livio lifted his gun.

Vash pushed the barrel out of the way, then walked across to the wall where the power lines ran.

"What? You're not doing that weird power draining thing are you?" Livio demanded as Vash put his right hand up on the power line. A moment later they were plunged into darkness.

"Oi! What ya doing? Now we can't see!" Livio protested, hastily digging through his pockets for a lighter.

"It wasn't me!" Vash protested.

Livio found a box of matches and lit one. Vash appeared out of the darkness beside him and crouched down beside the console. He held up a torch. Livio grimaced at him. He had been standing right beside it. They walked through the brig, flashing the torch across the cells as they sought out the plant containments. The prisoners called to them to free them, some shouted cusses, others demanded to know what was going on. They found the plant containment units empty. Livio swore sulphurously.

"Oi! Let us out and we'll tell you what happened." The nearest prisoners called to them.

Livio turned to them and walked over. The people hadNo Man's Land accents.

"Who were you?" He asked.

"Got on the wrong side of the Terrans." The man said blandly. "They did this to me, tell me why I should ever be on their good side?" He held up his arm, the wrist and hand had been mechanised and augmented. "Don't let the flesh fool you, half my body is this metal stuff. And I ain't nearly the most impressive. I'm just the most disagreeable. Ya should see what they do to people in the upper decks."

"Let's go." Vash strode past and Livio turned to follow.

"That's not the way they took the plant kids."

Livio turned slowly on his heel, raised his machine gun and shot out the lock. The man inside dove to the side, swearing. Livio strode in, snatched the man up by the collar and with one hand dangled him in the air.

"Where did they take the plant kids?" He growled.

" _TheywenthawaywivJohnston!_ " The man flailed his hands in the direction of the plant containment areas.

Livio placed him on his feet.

"Say that again."

"They went that way with Johnston. He took 'em half an hour ago. Kids were being all sullen, the girl bit him."

Livio grinned.

"Vash! This way!" He called as he hopped out of the cell. Vash had been opening the other doors.

"Vash?" The prisoner paled as Vash loped over. "Vash the Stampede? It's gone that bad?"

"H-hey, that's not fair." Vash protested, but the man backed away from him and scuttled over to join the fleeing prisoners. He turned and ran after Livio.

The lights flickered on again, but dimly, running on emergency power. He felt sick. Surely Knives would at _least_ be worried about their sisters? Or were the Sandworms operating on their own in this? He didn't know enough about the Sandworms to distinguish the two. The reality was that Knives was dictatorial to the point of maiming or killing subordinates who would not listen. Yet perhaps he was the sort of king the hivemind could accommodate? He simply did not know enough, Knives had been correct in relaying that sentiment to him.

* * *

Meryl had her derringers out, but she had only fired two at the more thickheaded mercenaries who had tried to detain her. She finally caught up to Milly as they reached the open hall near the centre of the ship.

"Miss Meryl!" Milly exclaimed and engulfed her in a hug.

Meryl squeaked as she had the air squeezed out of her and caught a furious glance from Millions Knives. He was already moving out of the hall, which was what saved them. Meryl stood gasping dizzily beside Milly marvelling at how close death had been.

"Miss Calor and Mister Knives have been trying to catch Mister Teres. He ran in here and we lost him."

Meryl smiled up at Milly, it was so good to see her. She looked around for Abe, and saw him fighting his way across the room to them. It was then the First Leader of the Sandworms, still mounted on his sandworm, entered the hall.

He took one look around and almost fell off his worm as he turned so sharply to stare at Milly and her.

"What the hell are you doing here?" He demanded, furious.

Meryl stormed over.

"Fighting! Do you think I would crawl back to my home like a coward?"

"This is a war! You're a girl!"

Meryl smiled at him.

"Milly, what would you know; the man has eyes in his head." She smirked sarcastically, and glanced back at Milly. Her friend wasn't paying any attention to anything except Abe. She turned back to the First Leader of the Sandworms doubly irked, and let him have it.

* * *

Vash shook his head, trying to focus. The orbs, the sandworms and the crew of the Exitalis were all _distractions._ He pushed them from his head as he leaped up the stairs, panicked. He could guess only too well what the fate of the twins might be. He skidded to a halt as the landing he had arrived at opened out into a wide hall with suspended passages running the length of the room. He examined the various exits of the passage he was on, trying to remember the layout of the Soldalus, surely the Terrans had built the ships to a similar plan? He then heard a very familiar voice and stepped over to the railing so he could look down into the mayhem of the hall below. There were the crew of the Exitalis, the Feds and the Earth Federation Peace Force all milling below. They were not fighting with weapons, which was a relief. There were tumultuous arguments happening though. He then heard a strident voice raise over all the others and automatically winced and chuckled to himself. Meryl could sure hand out a tongue-lashing. He then realised the person she was lecturing was the First Leader of the Sandworms. The poor man was gaping at her as if wondering if what was happening was real.

"Yow, am I glad that's _not_ me!" Livio exclaimed behind him. "And she'll certainly give us one all the way from there if she sees us."

Vash hurried on with alacrity. They pounded up the stairs to the upper level and flung themselves back down a bend in the stair well as bullets buzzed past them and slammed into the wall. Vash peered around the corner, aiming carefully.

"I'll say this for your girl." Livio remarked, looking down into the hall behind them. "She's the grit that stops the gears and makes whatever disaster that is going on fall to pieces in a good way. You need her."

"Never said I didn't!" Vash grumbled, flustered. Why was Livio mentioning this nonsense now? He needed to concentrate.

"Really? Your actions speak very loudly! Is it that you _like_ disaster and know she'll only lessen opportunities for fun?"

No. That was one of the reasons he respected her. As unorthodox as her methods were, she was good at calming things down. He smiled, instead of riling him; Livio had eased him into a calmer space. He shot the pistols out of the hands of the crew guarding the stairs, then leaped up and charged them. It brought them to the next level up in the hall. There were several crew drawing guns to snipe on those below.

Vash took out the snipers he could surprise with bullets, and Livio dispatched those who thought they could try return the fight to him.

They made it to the bridge, aided by looters who were distracting the Terrans from their guard duty. They stepped into the room and found a man sitting in the pilot's chair, with his elbows on the armrests and his fingers in a steeple in front of his face. Vash had never seen him before, but there was no doubt about his features or his aura. He was a plant, and a young one with a full potential. Livio took one step into the room, raised his machine guns and emptied them at the man.

"No!" Vash yelled. "Wait!" Had the man not learned from that time all those years back from trying to fire at him? Regular guns did not work on plants. And Livio did not seem to have acquired angel shot either. The shells clinked to the floor as Livio ceased fire. The man in the chair was smiling, as if this introduction had not disturbed him.

"My, my." He murmured. "I am privileged. Vash the Stampede and the Trip of Death. I did not think my actions would have caught your interest."

"You're Agone Zolfilian?"

The plant crossed one leg over the other and raised an eyebrow.

"You shot me before you were sure?"

"You look like his picture. I was sure." Livio snapped.

"Then, on whose bidding did you come? As I understood it, you're the two pacifists of this world. Interesting definition of pacifism that No Man's Land has. I'd not call you pacifists, rather knights of peace, you desire it so strongly, you would die for its cause. But semantics aside. Why are you here?"

"Your henchmen kidnapped my kids."

Agone raised both eyebrows at that.

"They're Chronica's kids as I understand. Intriguing to know that you're their father. This makes a little more sense, though not wholly. You're with the Eye of Michael, aren't all their enhanced warriors sterile?"

"Wheee?" Livio gaped at him.

"Eh!" Agone raised a hand languidly, as Livio brought up the guns again. "Hear me out. You do know that independent plants are very rare. In the entire Empire there are only five hundred. This planet currently holds the greatest number of independent plants outside of the imperial palace. Is it not curious that those twins are fully plant? They hold no trace of human DNA."

"They're my kids." Livio grouched.

"I know." Agone murmured and smiled mirthlessly again. "Which proves a very disturbing point. How were you enhanced, warrior of the Eye of Michael, that you could father children, and that your children are not human?"

"Hell no! No disrespect, but I ain't a plant!" Livio shuddered, then shot a sheepish glance at Vash. "I saw what he can do, there is no way in hell I can do that!"

"No. You're a mutated creature, part this, part that. An interesting study if my interests were to lie that way. What I am fascinated by is that your kids are wholly plant."

Livio gave him a very flat look.

"Where are they?" He growled.

"On the other ship." Agone said calmly.


	53. Chapter 53

_**Chapter 53**_

The other ship. Vash glanced through the windows of the bridge where Agone had pointed. He watched as Livio's face fell and became an expression of ill distress.

"Now, gentlemen, if you'll excuse me, I have appointments elsewhere."

"You're not going _anywhere_." Livio snapped as Agone rose to his feet. The plant gazed at him with amused condescension.

"As powerful as you are, young man, you do not have that power."

Livio's eyes widened in alarm.

"Vash! Grab him!"

Vash was moving before Livio yelled, but neither the warning nor his movements were fast enough. They collided awkwardly in the space Agone had been and clung to each other as they staggered around to get their balance. The man had vanished.

"After him!" Livio roared. Staggering and pushing at each other they sprinted away from the bridge.

"What the hell did he do?" Livio demanded as they skipped down stairs faster than the elevators could take them.

"Short range teleport. These Terran plants shouldn't be able to do it." Vash complained. It bothered him a great deal that both Agone and Teres had managed it, Knives had only been able to do it with the full fused entity. How much power could those two access?

"Can you?" Livio asked hopefully.

"No." Vash admitted. "Knives did it once."

There was a long silence from Livio. Vash found himself contemplating the sheer amount of power that took. Did the independent plants they had drained _have_ that kind of power? Livio seemed to be thinking along the same lines.

"If they have done _anything_ to my kids they will _wish_ only Razlo came to meet them."

Vash glanced back at Livio. There was an incandescent fury in his eyes, though they were clear and fully in control. Vash felt a shudder run through him; he had seen that look on some people. It was what happened when one crossed a good man and that good man went out to seek justice. There was no malice, righteous indignation or revenge. It was a simple meting out of justice.

There was no reasoning with people like that. Agone and his cronies had crossed a line, and Livio would go after them no matter what he said.

They exited the ship into a maelstrom of dust, screams, gunshots and mayhem.

Livio grabbed his arm. He saw where the man pointed. An abandoned jeep lying on its side. Perhaps it would still be okay. They both heaved the car so that it rocked, but it took several attempts and them jamming things between the bodywork and the ground before they could tip it over. Livio opened the hood and took a moment to inspect it.

"It seems okay." He said dubiously then clambered up into the driver's seat and turned the ignition.

" _Seems_?" Vash queried as the car backfired several times before starting then sounded like a thunderous belching monster.

"No silencer and let's see if this works." Livio mused and leaped out of the seat. He leaned into the engine and after several sharp cusses from him, the noise quieted minutely.

"All sparkplugs firing now. Let's go."

Vash clung to the passenger window and squinted into the dust haze through which Livio was driving. Even with his glasses on he could not see much, perhaps Livio's eyes were differently augmented? He had never thought to ask.

There was so much he had never thought to ask. He wanted to know what the Teran's were building here. Another ship, he could understand that. But why kidnap _independent_ plants and drain them? Surely, the purpose of plants was to have a resource that spent itself out over years rather than a very limited time such as what one of those batteries could hold? What was it that required such a powerful boost?

As they drove a dark shadow loomed up to their left, and as they drew closer in the haze it became a canyon wall. Livio gave a satisfied grunt as he found the road and put on still more speed. The jeep was shuddering, but holding together. Then as the light dimmed to their left and the outline of a very different build of Terran ship appeared. Vash felt as if someone had punched him in the gut. It was not a Terran ship. It was one of the old Seeds ships, though now so heavily modified he could barely recognise it. What had they done? What were they doing? Did they think a crashed ship was space worthy after all this time?

"Vash, what the hell is that?" Livio demanded.

"A ship!" Vash called back.

There was silence.

"Strangest ship I ever saw." Livio muttered.

Vash glanced over to his friend then saw what he meant. Ahead of them in the haze was a dense darkness and peculiarly, the edges of the darkness were brilliant lights.

"I have no idea." Vash said honestly.

There was gunfire and shouting ahead. Livio floored the accelerator and stood up in his chair to try see what was going on ahead. The road came to an abrupt end at a gate. The gate and the fence it closed were made of wire and almost impossible to see in the hazy dust. This had not stopped the previous raiders from driving the gate down and forging their own road. Livio slammed on the breaks as they skidded over the gate and ploughed through the sand to were other vehicles were overturned. He swung around them and drove at a slower pace, following the footpath through the dunes. The car stalled half way up a dune and Livio killed the engine.

"We can run faster than this." He said in disgust and sprang out of the car. Vash headed for the top of the dune and Livio sprinted for the base where the gravelly ground was better for running.

Vash stood and stared out at the great darkness before him. It was as he stood there that he felt it rather than heard it. A note so low he felt it in his bones and in the vibration of the sand beneath his feet. It sounded for a moment, then everything was still again. He shuddered to rid himself of the sensation.

He sprinted down the dune to find Livio staggering along as if drunk.

"Livio!" He hailed the man and then grabbed him around the shoulders when he almost overbalanced while turning. Livio pushed him away and collapsed to his knees and threw up.

"What, in the nine hells, was that?" Livio spat and wiped at his mouth.

"Some kind of deterrent?" Vash hazarded, it had been eerie for him, but clearly quite effective on Livio.

"No kidding." Livio said snidely and shoved himself to his feet. "Ugh." He shook his head and squared his shoulders. "What're we lingering here for? Let's get some distance in! Run!"

They made it to the dunes that surrounded the lights. Huge daylight spots mounted on vastly tall poles bolted into the ground. Livio was being somewhat more cautious and lay on his stomach with binoculars. Vash crouched down beside him. Livio spat a curse and handed the binoculars to him as if he had seen enough. A milling crowd of people stood on what seemed to be a vast launch apron. The darkness above was caused by vast swathes of netting that had been spread across the canyon. Someone had been hiding this project from the planet's spy satellites.

To the left side of the launch apron stood the reconditioned ship. It was quarter the size of the original Seeds ship, but the alterations, now that he looked closely at them, weren't so slipshod as he had first imagined. Someone knew shipbuilding. He gazed up at the ship, realising that for the first time, No Man's Land had a chance at sending some other message back to Earth other than "help", though he was fairly sure that this is what the return of such a patched ship would relay.

Livio nudged him.

"Isn't that Meryl?"

They both looked where he pointed. Vash focussed the binoculars, and for a bewildered moment chased picture through the abandoned crates and trucks towards the centre of the commotion. He caught something white and stopped. Oh man, it was Meryl, crouched behind a forklift. Her partner Milly was sitting in the driver's seat, aiming a stun gun claw.

"Leave them alone." Vash urged. The last thing he needed was an argument as to the best thing to do.

"Er." Livio pointed again and Vash saw Knives crouched beside Calor, she had Chronica's rocket launcher on her shoulder.

"No!" Vash sprinted towards them, tumbling down the dune in his haste.

But he was too late. He saw Agone emerge from the ship and Knives rose to his feet at the same time.

* * *

Agone strode down the ships ramp with Teres in his wake. The milling people divided into three groups. One lot saluting Agone, the other two pointing at each other and arguing loudly.

Agone paused and glanced at them as if surprised.

"You're still here? I seem to remember suggesting that you leave."

"We heard what you're doing here." One group called.

"We don't care," the other group shouted them down. "Just pay us what you owe us!"

"I know some of those people." Livio murmured, startled. "Engineers with the Eye of Michael."

"We want to go back to Earth, not die on this forsaken world."

"Take them, and give us their share too!"

"Is that why the Eye of Michael has been so quiet of late, they were building this?" Livio sounded grudgingly awed.

Agone turned away as if he had not heard the engineers, and walked over to the group of soldiers who were holding a man chained and hooded.

"You owe us our wages. We can sabotage the ship as easily as build it."

Agone halted in his tracks then. He turned slowly, his eyes cold. Without a further word he splayed his right hand out and it was all Vash could do to catch the speed at the way the blades scythed out from his body. It took the people several seconds to realise they were dead. Vash sprinted, he had never imagined Agone to be another Knives. He had also seriously misjudged the distanced of half an ile that the binoculars covered so easily.

It was then that Knives himself walked forward, slowly clapping his hands together. He walked through the pooling blood without getting any on his white boots. He still, now somewhat mockingly, clapped his hands. Once he was free of the blood he brought his hands together in a final clap and smiled mirthlessly at Agone.

"You." Agone spat suddenly incandescent with rage. He flung out blades faster than Vash's eye could follow them. Knives stood still, though he blurred slightly as he did. Vash rubbed his eyes to find Knives still standing there, but now Agone was clutching his arm, his eyes widening in horror and pain as blood dripped off his fingers.

"Angel shot, I believe this stuff is called." Knives said conversationally. "I also am told it works with greater effect the stronger the plant."

"You bloody murderer!" Agone screamed at him, then baulked as he tried to use his power and pain sizzled through him. He charged Knives, blades scything out.

* * *

Vash staggered to a halt at the edge of the apron, watching the scene unfold with horror. Livio grabbed him by the shoulder.

"Fight your fight." He muttered. "I'm making use of this distraction."

Vash tore himself away from the fight. Knives was holding his own. He did not know how Knives managed it as depleted of power as he was, but he gave as good as he got. He sprinted after Livio who darted up the ramp into the ship.

"You sure about leaving your brother?" Livio asked reluctantly, as if he wished Knives dead but did not want to let on.

"Knives is up to something." Vash muttered. "I _still_ don't know what it is and I _really_ don't like that."

They glanced at the passages as if that would give them their answers.

"Where do we go?" Livio hissed.

"Power plants. They're in the lower levels of the ship, if this was built according to Seeds design." Vash took off down the passage. They had entered at the very lowest level, so they had to proceed upwards.

They were very few crew wandering the passage, so they took those they encountered out with ease. Vash was astonished when he discovered that Rem's override code still worked on the ship. They must be running the whole system on the ancient Seeds programs. He marvelled again at the fortune and misfortune that he and Knives had encountered by being born on the mother ship. It helped when they needed to lock people away into cabins or shut down entire passages.

"Ya'know." Livio mused, watching him do this. "I always thought they were exaggerating when they said you guys were from the Great Fall. As if they wanted you plants to have this mythic existence. Only, it's true, isn't it?"

Vash gave him a look, as if to say not to believe everything he heard, and nodded ahead.

"Those are the power rooms."

Livio took out his guns and marched forward as Vash keyed the doors open. Livio's words caught in his throat with a gargled gasp. Not only was the room a vast orb plant chamber, the rings of orbs rising one above the other until they blurred with distance, but on the floor in rigid glass plant containment units were chained six independent plants. The two opposite the door were Jasmine and Douglas. They were taller now, were they humans they would to be in their early to mid teens. Jasmine leaped to her feet and splayed both hands on the glass. She was shouting something, though nothing could be heard. Vash grinned crookedly at his friend as Livio recognised the word she was saying over and over again. "Daddy."

* * *

"Look! There go Mister Vash and Mister Livio."

Meryl tore her eyes away from Knives and Agone, privately hoping they both would finish each other off.

Milly pointed at the entrance to the ship. Two men, one in a red coat, the other in a black cape and hat were sneaking on board the ship. What were they after? Vash had the unerring talent of being in the right place in the worst circumstances. Ugh, this could be such a mess, what was more important than Knives? She remembered the twins then, and felt ill.

"We've got to help them rescue the kids." Milly said as another figure separated from the crowd and sauntered over to the ships ramp.

It was Teres. Oooh! Meryl thought furiously. You are not getting anywhere near my friends!

Milly must have had the same thought, as she bounded out of the forklift and sprinted across to the ship.

* * *

Livio ran over to the containment units in which the twins were trapped. They were nothing like plant orbs, which were beautiful and elegant. No these were glass prisons, and the thick rings clamped about the necks and wrists of their occupants were like shackles. The only difference was that these shackles had thick cables running from them. Vash walked slowly behind him. Livio had darted around the centre of the chamber and on to the twins, but he stopped. Unshielded and open to the room at large was a pedestal on which hung a neck collar. Although instead of having conduits out, it only had those coming in. Vash shuddered at the idea and glanced upwards at the orb plants, from which the conduits would draw their power. He could feel their anxiety and worry pulsing through the room. He could see that some recognised him, and while not being reassured at his presence, they impressed on him his duty to protect them. He gazed at their beautiful forms and smiled sadly, sorry they had been caught up in a war not theirs, but a war their power enabled. He brushed his hand over the neckpiece and curled his fingers in on themselves feeling defiled. A faint pulse of energy had warmed his hand, but it was not all the pure energy the orb plants used. He shook his hand out trying to get rid of the sensation. With the clean warm power he knew, a searing hot power flowed slowly as if it were only then waking to strength. It was reluctant, and with just his brief touch had seemed to flow a little easier. Somehow, a plants presence was a catalyst to this machine. Vash turned away and hurried after Livio, now desperate to get the twins out. That strange awakening power was far stronger than any power he had ever known. Even his own power under Knives' control had been nothing on this. What would a plant _do_ with such power, were such a plant able to handle it without having their life seared from them by the through passage of power?

By the time Vash reached him, Livio had wound the screw of the pressure door open and was picking the locks on Jasmine's neck collar. Vash set to work on the door of Doug's prison. He hauled the door open and hurried over to the boy.

"Vash." He growled through his teeth, his body tense with fear. "You need to destroy this place."

Vash flicked his gaze upwards and Doug's expression snagged with helpless agony at the fate of his sister plants.

"Just get this off me!" He begged shoving at the collar around his neck. "It lets you feel everything!"

Vash knew that idea all too well. The setup was peculiar, but it was essentially the same as the fused entity. One plant would know the thoughts and intents of all, and with that came the misfortune of one plant being able to control the entire entity. The instant he touched the collar, he felt the odd surge of the sticky reluctant power again and scowled at the ring on the pedestal. Doug gagged.

"Vash, get me out!" He panted when he could speak again.

He shoved his thumb into the pressure lock holding the collar closed and forced all the reluctant power out through it. The skin over his thumb cracked and morphed with the surge. The neck collar clicked open and Doug pulled his head out so fast he skinned his chin.

"Now these!" He shoved the shackles at Vash, shivering in panic.

* * *

Meryl followed Milly, and after back tracking and taking several wrong turns, they finally made it down to the plant room. They slipped inside and found not a room, but a chamber, soaring higher than they could see in the vapours generated in the interior of the ship, and sinking lower than they had imagined the ship was buried.

"I don't see anyone." Milly whispered, worried.

Meryl squinted downwards, she thought she had seen a movement.

"We need to get down there."

"It's a long way down." Milly leaned over the railing.

"Not that way!" Meryl pulled her back.

The elevator emerged into a passage of doors. Some were elevators and others thick ship doors which could be sealed against a hull breach. Meryl headed for the one closest to the plant chambers. The circular handle unlocked with a heart stopping clunk. After they had made sure no one had heard they eased the door open. They emerged in semi darkness, the room was filled with waist thick cable bundles, the only thing illuminated in the room were several complex switch boards.

"I think you found the back door." Milly whispered delightedly. "Good going Meryl!"

Meryl braced her foot on the wall and pulled the door closed behind them. Cautiously, she and Milly headed along the raised gantry ways between the cable routings. There was a humming murmur that increased as they approached the far end of the room. Several huge enclosed boxes seemed to be transformers of some type. Meryl wondered how a ships engine ran that they needed quite so much power. She remembered the tours of the city plants; they had had one of these devices. She then recalled the unusual bank of plants; no city had had quite so many.

They followed the gantry down a flight of metal stairs and across into a viewing chamber that overlooked the plant room. She sighed in relief. They were on the right floor, now they needed a way to get out.

"Miss Meryl!" Milly grabbed the back of her cloak, her voice squeaking in fright.

"What?" Meryl had her derringers out before spotting what Milly had seen. Teres. The plant was standing on the command platform at the far side of the room, bent over the consol. In the centre of the room stood a pedestal, and as they watched Teres adjust leavers and flip switches, it lit up and they could see the whole room now. The pedestal was clearly the centre of the power conduits, drawn down from the hundreds of orbs above them, and seven half domes containing reluctant prisoners. Meryl gasped as she recognised Doug and Jasmine in two of them, bound at the neck and wrists. They were sitting cross legged, watching Teres balefully. Had Vash and Livio got lost? It was then her eye was snagged by another movement. Livio crouched within a plant chamber on the far side of the room, picking the lock of the neck collar. The female independent plant he was helping had a grim expression on her face, her eyes focussed on Teres.

She then noticed Vash surreptitiously attempting to open the dome door of the plant opposite Teres. If Teres were to turn around, he would see him. However, the plant was too busy adjusting a neck collar that was attached to the command platform.

"We gotta help Mr Vash!" Milly declared, but Meryl was already moving. Whatever Teres was doing he had to be stopped.


	54. Chapter 54

_**Chapter 54**_

Meryl slipped into the room and darted across to the nearest plant dome. The independent inside it was watching Teres so intently that he did not notice her. She recognised him from the listings she had at Fifth Moon, his name was Caelum as far as she recalled. She tried the door, but could not even budge the leaver that latched it closed. Livio was headed their way and the plant grimly indicated that he would wait. She darted away from Caelum's dome and across to the next.

Teres then lifted a circular neck collar, much like those which bound the others in the room. Meryl felt a shudder of horror course over her as he lifted it to settle it around his neck. As he did so, she felt the power suddenly hum through the room. It was so strong it felt as though her bones were vibrating. The plants in the domes began yelling and tugging at their neckpieces. Meryl saw Livio, who had pulled one plant free of the neckpiece, trying to drag the plant across the dome. But even without the neck piece, the plant slipped into semi consciousness, already part of the loop of power.

It was as she stepped out to confront Johnston, that a movement behind her caught her eye. Vash, with a deadly grim expression on his face. Meryl felt her heart stop. She had seen him with that expression once before. It had been when he had gone to confront Knives all those years back. He did not expect to survive. She was not fast enough to turn and plead with him to stop. She could not even bring his attention to her. It felt as though she were moving through thick syrup as she turned. Vash fluidly stepped up to the pedestal in the centre of the room, took up the collar with a grunt of pain and lowered it around his neck. In that moment Teres spun around, his face a picture of horror. She had thought the draw of power was strong before, but now the movement of energy keened eerily over the terrified screams of the independent plants. Vash swayed for a moment, his fists clamped over the edges of the neck collar.

"No!" Teres yelled as Vash clamped them together.

Meryl was flung to the floor by the ripple of concussion flung out from Vash. He screamed as the power tore through him. His muscles locked, forcing his face into a rictus. His back arched, then he went limp, fell to the floor and grabbed the cable in both hands. He hung on as if he were a man drowning and that was his life line.

"You fool!" Teres screamed at him. "You know nothing of warp systems!"

The strange cracked maze patterns rippled across his skin nearest the neck collar and cable. Vash grew feathers and wings along his arms and shoulders. Meryl felt panic boil through her. She had seen him transform into a plant before, but it had been _nothing_ like this. The feathers he grew now were black, and eerily, some seemed to not only be black, but instead empty holes in the universe. It was as if he were using nothingness as matter to craft form. Black flames flickered all over the cable and flickered across the floor.

It had all happened so fast, she had not even had the time to scramble for cover.

A black inferno whipped around Teres, and he brought his hands up, deflecting it with more of the same weird black energy. It was then that the cries and screams from the imprisoned independent plants changed. Milly had dragged some free, as had Livio. Others hammered ineffectually on the inner walls.

"Vash!" Doug screamed his voice cracking and squeaking in terror. "No!"

Vash weakly pushed himself up into a sitting position, then shaking like a sick man, got to his feet.

"What do I have to know?" Vash demanded of Teres, in a voice hoarse with pain. "When I can do it instinctively?" He closed his fist and the black flames seemed to return to him, as if he were their master.

"It's calibrated to my gate, you'll destroy everyone here!" Teres clawed at the air, almost pleadingly, as he gestured up at the plants above them.

Meryl realised that she was still lying on the floor and pushed herself to her feet. With Teres and Vash locked in some kind of private mêlée, she darted over to the control panel behind Teres. There had to be some way to shut this thing down.

Teres, realised then that he could not hope to challenge Vash with raw power. He drew his pistol and fired at Vash. But Vash, as dazed as he was, reacted instinctively with the grace and speed of one who had lived by the gun for half of his life. Teres's shot clipped Vash's upper arm and by the shudder that past through him, Teres did not use regular bullets. Vash had not aimed for Teres, instead he had struck the collar Teres wore.

While he was distracted, Meryl darted past Teres and searched the machinery in front of her. What should she do? Ancient ship machines were Vash's thing. He knew how to work the mysterious computers that came with the old ships. She did not dare to risk a glance back at him. He would know what to do, while she hadn't a clue. She ducked under the tabletop, hunting for a plug. She was dismayed to discover a metal pipe acting as a conduit for the mass of cables that looped through the console.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Meryl screamed as Teres grabbed her bodily away from the console. Meryl turned and to her horror watched Vash raise his gun again. He fired. Meryl screamed in shock and fear. It felt as if he had shot her ear off. It stung so badly. Teres grunted and gripped her tightly with his other arm. Vash realised his first attempt had failed, though by the way Teres was holding her, and the sticky wetness she could feel on her neck, he had caught Teres through the shoulder.

What a good idea. She thought in a moment of insane bliss. She would buy Vash the largest box of doughnuts she could find if they ever got out of this. She drew her derringers, and shot Teres in the the arm he had clamped around her and in the foot, for good measure. He jerked her off her feet and she felt crystal feathers scrape at her hands. She had forgotten that bullets were useless against a plant.

Then the light began to glow. The arm with which Teres held her mazed over completely and cracked, opening up to tiny patches of incandescent light. Meryl screamed and tried to wriggle out of his grasp. She would be dead by sheer proximity to the weapon he wielded. She could hear that eerie sound of it gathering energy, over the wailing of the plants and the endless roar of the power Vash sought to bring under control.

(Stand absolutely still)

His voice was the only one which would have ever torn her attention away from her horror stricken fixation on Teres' angel arm. He spoke to her thoughts, the sheer power of even a whisper almost shattered her mind. She instinctively glanced across at Vash and froze. He stood as if the winds of power were not roaring around him. They whipped at his hair and coat tails and sending incandescent sparks flying into the vortex gathering above him.

"Release your power Teres." Vash warned in a gravelly voice.

Teres gripped her tighter and the power convergences in his arm grew steadily.

Vash fired, each one missing her by a fraction of an inch, like a magician would do as a stage show, firing at a pretty lady at a travelling fair. She waited for the pain. A moment passed and nothing happened. Then she saw the fire begin to burn around her, those horrid white flames that ate away at the life force of a living plant. Teres grunted in pain as he slumped down. He shoved her away as white fire flickered across his arm, which had glowed so brilliantly moments before. Now it was twisted with black decay. Meryl scrambled away as Teres whipped off his hat to beat at the flames. Meryl gaped at him; his hair is also completely black. Now free of the plant, she realised how much he had been protecting her. The roar and keening of power hurt her ears and made her teeth stand on edge. She grabbed at her cloak so it would not whip against her. She squinted through the wind to Vash to thank him, but he stood with his head bowed, his knees slightly bent as if he carried a great weight on his shoulders. Meryl peered worriedly upwards at what seemed to be a funnel of power and storm filing up through the ship's plant chamber. She then watched the panels around the plant orb housing shake loose. One giant piece of wall cladding peeled off as if it were a piece of loose wall paper and the instant it hit the funnel it seemed to disintegrate into fragments, then into nothing. She shuddered, it felt like a gateway to another place.

Her ear burned from the sting as she squinted through the howling wind. She was worried now. Vash would never have hit her if he were okay. He would never have hit her if he were very badly off either; he had a knack that way. No, that was deliberate. He was not one to harm others; she backed against the consol trying to think. The pain and wind kept distracting her. But the biggest distraction was the way Vash was transforming. He remained mostly human, though his hands and arm were covered in maze patterns and his hair seemed to gather more sparks than his coat. She forced the distractions down. Her gaze came to rest on Teres who lay prone on the floor. He had his hand clenched over his ruined arm and was trying to do some sort of self-healing and failing. Meryl poked him with her boot to get his attention.

"How do you turn this thing off?" She screamed at him over the eerie howl of the energy.

Teres gaped at her, his hair black and his face bloody.

"I don't know!" He yelled, his eyes wild. "We need to get out!" He could not move, but clawed at her foot. She nailed the pressure point on the back of his hand and he released her. He left a bloody handprint on her sleeve as he slumped to the floor.

"You built it!" She waved hysterically at it.

"I didn't! Agone did! This was his pet project." Teres gazed at her his eyes filling with a strange understanding. "You don't know what this is, do you?" He began to laugh though it morphed into an eerie rattling cough. "This isn't the main part of the ship. It's part of the power station. Hear that roar? That's the real ship launching."

Meryl felt the bottom drop out of her world.

"Vash! This is the wrong … place."

He could not hear her. He was trapped in the vortex of power. Feathers and light flared around him. The heat was increasing to the point of discomfort.

She could hear the roar rising. In their prisons, the various plants fought to save themselves. Livio and Milly worked together now, forcing the door of Caelum's dome with a final hefty kick. They burst into the prison and set about disentangling the dazed plant from the circuit. The twins headed to the next sealed dome. They raised their hands and morphed feathers, calling their arm cannon.

"No! Cut it out! You're not using that here!" Livio yelled at them, almost flying out of the dome he was in across to them. The pulse they fired rebounded and they had to raise their feathers to protect themselves. Livio thudded into them and dragged them below himself, although it was their feathers that absorbed the worst of the power.

"Stay down!" Abe yelled over the increasing roar and heat and screams of the trapped independents and plants.

Meryl stared at him, where had he come from? She had been so caught up in Vash and his mishap, that she had not been aware of his arrival. Abe raised Chronica's bazooka and blasted the door.

"Get him!" He ordered as Livio and the twins picked themselves off the floor and hurried on to the next prison.

"Abe! Get the consol!" Meryl called in a flash of relief. The explosion boomed thunderously around the room as Abe the gun fired at the next containment door.

"That's your job Meryl!" He yelled back at her and kicked down the door he had just blasted open for the twins to get the plant out.

Meryl raised her derringers.

"No!" Teres croaked.

Meryl did not listen to his pleas and moans for her to stop. She hauled derringer after derringer as she shot up the consol. She then pulled out all the wires she could find. It shorted and sparked. She burned her hands and shocked herself, then just when she was beside herself as to how to kill the power, it sparked and fizzled. The whole thing went dead. As it did so the entire bank of plant orbs above them flared brightly.

"What have you done!" Teres moaned his expression horrified.

"Hah!" She panted, too exhausted for malice or passion. "Serves you right."

Teres tried to worm his way across the floor.

"No!" He clawed at it, then turned and gazed upwards.

"You fool!" He swore at her, his eyes tormented beyond anything she had ever seen. "That regulated the electricity inflow. Now you're dumping unregulated raw power through the system! My sisters!"

He gazed in horror up at the brightly burning orbs, the light slowly dimmed and the roar outside became thunderous. Inside the howl of power and energy increased. Dust and sparks flew through the air, Meryl pulled up her cape to protect her face. She turned in utter dismay to Vash who now stood half crouched as if carrying an exceedingly heavy burden, his hands clenched and his body shaking. Lightning arced around the room.

"Get out!" Abe yelled. "Livio! Meryl, Milly, you're dead if that hits you! Get out!"

Meryl could not move. There was a thunderous crack so loud her ears rang. Teres lay on his back near her clawing at the arc of electricity that now seemed to earth its way through him. He seemed to revive and managed to stagger to his feet. He turned towards Vash in the centre of the room.

"No!" Meryl screamed. Dimly in the background, other people were hanging on to each other, dragging those who could not walk from the room.

All around Teres the lightning flickered, he took a staggering step over towards Vash, the lightning arcing between him and the cords that surrounded them. Then for a moment the hit the collar Vash wore and the crack of sound was so loud it was raw pain. Vash had raised his arm, and had aimed overhead, and had fired off his revolver, only the bullets were pure energy.

Steam and acrid smoke filled the air creating a mingled haze. Meryl held her cloak over her mouth and coughed, her eyes watering. The lightning surrounded Vash now, isolating him, imprisoning him. She hated how she knew to her bones that there was absolute nothing she could do for him.

Teres swayed where he stood, and clawed at the air, reaching for the power. He tried to leap for it, but Livio threw himself at the plant, knocking him off his feet. Livio held the double fang to his face, as exhaustion, hatred and fury threatened to overcome him. He could not kill the plant, not yet.

"Why did you do this?" He demanded, hoarsely.

Teres hazily turned to his eyes, as if focussing took all his energy. Lightning forked overhead the concussion of noise deafening Livio to any spoken response. Yet Teres did not speak. He only looked up, past Livio towards the upper levels of the chamber where Vash was working the fires of nature. For a moment, Livio followed his gaze, then returned his eyes to his enemy. In that moment he caught the pained expression of utter despair, then he was gone. Livio jerked backwards as Teres' body disintegrated into hundreds of charred crystal feathers, but he was not swift enough. Memories pounded through his mind, the whirlwind of multiple moments were at once coherent stories and twisted conflicted information. Furious Livio jerked to his feet and kicked at the black feathers, many of them disintegrating into dust. He howled in fury. How had this been Teres's end? After all that Johnston had put them through? How had he escaped punishment? Death was too neat, too easy. He was about to thoroughly stamp the feathers to nothing when he saw Jasmine and Douglas clinging to each other near the door. Cold shock doused his fury. His heart clenched in agony as hope and despair fought, he clenched his fists and breathed out. He set his emotions aside as he had learned long ago; there was time to work with them, but not right now. There were more important things than impotent revenge.

Out of the smoke and haze, Calor hesitated beside the outline of what had been Teres. She very carefully stepped over him taking care not to touch a single fragment of feather.

"Meryl!"

She did not hear Calor beside her, but the woman tried to put her arm around her. Meryl fought her off.

"I'm waiting for Vash." She said, watching him sink to one knee.

His long feathers whipped around, they seemed, almost, to be conducting the lightning.

"He's trapped!" Calor snapped. "He can't come. You've got to get out of here!" She had to repeat herself several times before Meryl could make out her words. Her ears hurt and her hearing was mostly guesswork.

"No! He'll get out of it."

"Not this time! He's caught in a power cascade. The only reason he's not dead is 'cause he's channelling it. And see the white flames?"

Meryl felt as though she had been punched in the stomach.

Those little white flames were very, very bad news.

"No." She gasped, and leaped towards him.

Calor was faster.

Meryl fought her grasp, and Calor slapped the side of her head. Meryl felt the world spin weirdly around her and cussed out the plant and her powers.

"Here, take her!"

"What? No!" A man grated.

" _Take her_."

Meryl came back to semi consciousness as someone lugged her under his arm like a sack of potatoes. She wriggled and slipped out of the man's grasp and sprinted back to Vash. Someone grabbed her cape and hauled her off her feet. She hung choking in mid air and staring into the terrifying blue eyes of Millions Knives.

Knives grimaced.

"You've contaminated his life enough, girl." He spat in her face. "I am _not_ carrying you. Walk!"

He threw her along the passage and turned back to Vash.

Calor stood in the passage between Knives and Vash.

"We need you." She said coldly. "Your brother has done his duty well, and you must do yours."

Knives scythed out a blade to cut her down, but Calor blocked it with a furious expression on her face.

"Or would you kill him by distracting him and deny him the chance to save our sisters?"

"You do not dictate anything to me!" Knives grated. "You are latecomers here on this world!"

"Then your worm hives will die, and your world will dry up and our sisters will be left at the mercy of the humans here."

Knives opened and closed his mouth. For an instant his eyes flashed white with power, then it dimmed as he regained control. Calor turned her back on him and walked away. Meryl took the opportunity to hurry back to Vash. He was kneeling now, resting on both hands, as if the power were a weight crushing him. He looked alien, his face covered with cracked mazing and his right arm beginning to form an angel arm. She cried out, wanting him to hear her, knowing that he would regret this action when he regained his calmer mind. She screamed as the awful terror of him returned to engulf what sanity she retained through the panic. Knives grabbed her again, this time he didn't risk it. She crumpled half stunned as he smacked the side of her head with the butt of his black revolver.

"Miss Meryl!"

She was half-aware of Milly dragging her free of the ship, then of someone yelling. Abe? He was cussing out someone.

"I could have killed her." Knives said coldly.

"Mora!" Calor interjected.

"That bastard, I'll kill him." Abe spat, fighting her off and lunging at Knives.

"You could _try._ " Knives mocked darkly.

"Mora!"

There was a scuffle and Meryl opened her eyes as Milly's stun gun went off with two satisfying thunks. Abe and Knives were so intent on their private battle, they went sprawling in the dirt.

Milly screamed.

Meryl spun around in time to watch as a plant blade sliced up Milly's gun, clipped the collar of her coat and her hair on her left side, only to be twisted upwards by another thicker stronger blade. Milly sank to the ground, staring at Knives in horror. He cracked his knuckles and instantaneously withdrew his blades then flicked them at Abe who had thwarted him. Meryl felt ill, all she saw was a blur of movement, catching the action in a weird kind of stop motion as they slowed momentarily while blocking each other. Knives leaped backwards as a sandworm broke through the apron floor. He was drawn upwards, and with one final derisive stare in Abe's direction, turned away. The worm cruised south along the canyon floor, faster than any car could drive.

Abe sank to his knees, shaking as the worm disappeared out of sight. Milly stumbled over to him and he held her away from him, staring at her tattered coat and hair. Milly smiled crookedly to reassure him that she was alright.

Calor walked over briskly and hauled Abe to his feet when she saw Milly was not managing.

"What's this you taking the side of Millions Knives?" Abe roared, rounding on Calor .

"I am on no one's side but my own!" She snapped at him. "And I hope not to have to demand a loyalty test from you!"

Abe glared sullenly at her.

"You left Vash there to die!"

"He was dead the moment he grabbed that collar and he knew it!" Calor snapped. "Stop fighting me. We need to get away from here. Can't you feel the strain he is under waiting for us?"

Abe gave Calor a wild-eyed stare and staggered a few steps before he regained his balance. He reached for Milly.

"Are you alright?"

"F-Fine." Milly stammered. "Miss Meryl?"

Meryl could not see how bruised and bloodied she was, nor how dazed she looked. All she knew was that it was an effort to focus her eyes.

"Hey, Meryl?"

Meryl tried to stand but her head was too dizzy. She managed a half sway before she crumpled on the ground and threw up.

"Eugh!" Abe gagged. "Do try to not throw up on me, please."

Her addled brain only realised they were headed away from Vash when the ship dipped out of sight behind the sand dune. Abe suddenly couldn't hold her as she wriggled out of his grasp and ran back to the ship. But before she could crest the dune, there was a moment when she knew the worst had happened. A moment of silent stillness engulfed her. It was as if he had used the last of his energy to say farewell.

She screamed a half second before everything went to hell. The eerie warning keening noise too much power made was all she could hear. Light blasted over them as Abe dragged her and Milly flat underneath him and she could feel the heat of his power in response to the greater power roaring over them.

She could not hear when the silence came. Her ears were ringing painfully. She stared up from where she lay on her back on the sand dune, surprised to see a clear sky above them. It was blue and clear of dust, though the wind was blowing ever so slightly.

"Mora!" Calor snapped. "We need to get out of here now!"

Abe groaned and coughing fitfully pushed himself out of the sand much the worse for wear. Milly sat up dazedly.

"Miss Meryl?"

She managed a painful nod.

"What the hell did he do with all that energy?" Abe shook himself, then picked up a foot and put it down again. He shuddered.

"Hurry! Milly, get Meryl on her feet. We need to leave now!"

"Calor, what's the fuss? It's all over!"

"That's an order!" Calor snapped.

"Okay, okay, keep your panties on." Abe waved his hand at her.

Calor's face went purple but Abe did not seem to see that as helped Milly lift Meryl to her feet.

Standing she could see over the dune crest. The place where the ship had been was nothing but a burned out hull, still smoking.

"Vash!" She screamed.

"He's gone." Abe said gently.

"No!" Meryl shook herself free and staggered and fell down the other side of the dune. She picked herself up and push herself on towards the ship.

"Get back here!" Calor cried as Milly and Abe went after her to help her.

The ship stank of burned plastic. The structure creaked and cracked as it cooled. Meryl did not notice how the floor singed her boot soles. Milly hovered at her side, ready to catch her if she were to try kneeling on the floor. Where Vash had stood, there was nothing but a fine pile of ash. The rings of orbs above were all blackened and cracked and empty of any life. She then walked slowly over to the console where Johnston had fallen. Lying on the floor, kicked out of the way in the scuffle, was Vash's own silver gun. She wrapped her cape around her hand and picked it up. Milly and Abe hovered protectively behind her. She gazed at them, as if noticing them for the first time.

"We need to go. Calor is never needless in her orders."

Milly glanced at Abe who wore a sad, bleak expression on his face.

"Shock. Denial. But she understands what happened." He mouthed to Milly.

"And I _can_ lip read Abe Jefferson." Meryl snapped.

"Ah ha! Sorry!" Abe muttered shamefacedly.

Calor met them on the apron, driving an army personnel truck. The wind was picking up, flinging gusts of stinging sand into the air. Livio, the twins and two other independent plants were already seated in the back. The two plants were so ill, all that could be done was to keep them comfortable until they reached a hospital. Livio took in their expressions and turned away, his shoulders slumping slightly.

"Get in, and hurry!" Calor snapped.

"Sheesh." Abe groaned. "What has got you?"

"Can't you feel it?" Calor demanded as she swung the truck around and drove.

"Feel what?" Abe grouched. "I've got a headache the size of the planet; I have power backlash something awful so excuse me if my senses are poorly!"

"The rising storm. That, that _fool_ channelled all that power into the local weather system."

Abe stared at her in horror.

"Oh crud." He slouched down in his seat.


	55. Chapter 55

_**Chapter 55**_

Meryl only partly understood Calor's explanation about how dangerous it was to mess with the weather systems of a world. She stopped listening after Calor called Vash a fool. However, that evening as they drove towards Lost July, she watched in amazement as thick clouds built and towered over the dry barren landscape. The wind drove gusts of sand and dust with it.

They drove into the city, and for a moment, the clouds were forgotten. The Terran's had rebuilt the city, but someone had clearly given them old photographs. They had tried to keep the mood of the old city, reconstructing the old facades of the buildings along the main roads. Meryl could not look at them. All she could see were her family. She could taste her mother's cooking and hear her brother's voice as he called to his friends, and smell her father pipe tobacco. They were all gone now. Like him. She stared numbly at the gun partially wrapped up in her cape. Why did everyone she loved so much, leave?

They stopped at the hospital. Meryl had her hands and arms taped up for burns. They patched up her ear and bandaged the gash on her leg then checked her bruises for worse damage below. She had bruises everywhere. It was not fair that Milly did not have a single injury, although Abe more than made up for that. After they had seen the two plants settled, Calor took them across to Panse who had an office near the west gate, in a five story building that looked out over the desert. None of the No Man's Landers were doing any work in the office. They were all glued to the window to watch the clouds.

She sat beside Milly in the room as the storm winds outside began to howl. Calor, Livio, Abe and the twins were busy explaining to Panse what had happened. Meryl followed the chaotic tale right up until the first fat rain drops began to fall. Then she and Milly joined those at the window, watching the rain. It was as if the skies themselves were crying. Meryl did not notice the tears on her cheeks. Neither did she have the energy to join the impromptu party. She stepped out onto the balcony, and wove her way among the revellers and stood where she could catch the full force of the rain. It was the smell that enchanted her. The scent of water evaporating off the hot building stones. The city steamed, then even the steam dampened down under the deluge.

The water slicked her hair to her face, ran in rivulets down her back and legs, to pool inside her boots. She raised her face and drank the droplets. It was only as she began to shiver that she realised that the first sun had set and she was getting cold. She turned to find the balcony empty and Calor stood moodily watching her. The party had moved inside. She then realised she had been hugging Vash's gun to herself. The bloody thing was loaded, what was she thinking? Clearly nothing of any sense. It was now also soaking wet and she had no idea how to strip it down, what strange alterations had he had Marlon do to it? Ah, well, a good excuse to visit the gunsmith again. She removed the bullets, three left.

"So you have decided not to kill yourself." Calor murmured as Meryl crossed over to the overhang that sheltered the windows that looked out over the balcony.

"What? I wasn't going to jump!" Meryl exclaimed, then noticed Calor staring at the gun. "And I certainly wasn't going to shoot myself with _his_ gun!"

Calor nodded briefly.

"How are you feeling?" She said in a low voice. "Abe said not to invite you along, but Milly is coming, and I know she would want you along."

"Along to what?"

"Agone and Knives have yet to settle their differences. I thought we'd go show some support for No Man's Land."

"We're cheering Knives?" Meryl asked incredulously.

"Don't be so quick to dismiss him." Calor murmured. "He holds the balance of power that is very necessary for the survival of this planet."

"He tried to kill us."

"No, he tried to scare you, that's all." Calor smiled.

Meryl wondered how far gone she had to be in despair to believe Knives capable of mercy. Hadn't she seen how Abe had had to defend them? Calor did not notice her disagreement and continued.

"He is, however, going to try to kill Agone, and I want to be around to watch."

* * *

Agone ordered them to land the shuttle. They were far enough away now to watch the launch in its glory without the danger of being harmed. He stood on the crest of the dune waiting. There was a flash of light and a faint thunderous roar, as the ship rose, too small and too swiftly. Agone stared aghast as panic rose in his heart. Somehow, the launch had disconnected most of the power plants from the main ship. What had Teres done? He could no longer sense the plant. He watched the ship as it faltered in its main trajectory and was merely boosted up into upper orbit around the planet. At least his engineers knew enough to do that. But it wouldn't help now, as it was they were running on borrowed time. He clenched his fist, mourning his sister. Even with all the resources of this world, they had not been enough to return Domina to Earth.

It was then that he realised he was not alone in the desert. He turned, admiring the stateliness and eerie silence in which those enormous desert worms could move if they so wished. Knives stood not more than ten yarz away, watching him with cold blue eyes. The sorrow Agone felt congealed into a exhausted hatred.

"What have you done?" Knives voice was harsh, but not as depthless in wrath as his eyes.

"I seek only to save us." Agone replied tiredly. It would be a blessing were things to end now, it would end the heartache. However, he would never give one as insolent as Knives _that_ particular pleasure.

"Your actions condemn this world and give you nothing but bitter hope." Knives eyed the steadily rising ship with a pitying derision.

Agone smiled emptily.

"There is no hope for us and you know it."

"Ah." Knives relaxed then, his smile became easy and his eyes calm, "so you do understand what you have done."

Agone stared, feeling a shudder of horror run down his back as he recalculated. Knives was insane. He had been warned that only madmen could have done the things he and his brother had accomplished, but it had been such exquisite precision, he had not been able to believe it. Now he saw it, and knew that anything he said could potentially push Knives over the edge.

He had enough to worry about with trying launch the power section of the ship. If Teres had not betrayed him, he would be able to face Millions Knives, with all the strange power of the sandworms without distractions. He stared at the plant, recognising his expression - he had nothing left to lose. Agone gaped at him. He had not believed it until now, that Vash, the foolish brother, was the one who kept him in check. Goodness, he had seen the man's antics on the television it was embarrassing to watch. Nevertheless, Knives was watching him like a lion who had cornered a buck and was tensing for the kill. He had not realised how mesmerizing a stare the man had when he smiled. Why was Knives here? How was this now all his fault? Had Vash tried to stop Teres? Oh crud. What had happened to Vash?

He heard the gun fire once, a muted shot. He recognised the noise knowing he was dead even as he threw himself down. Knives dodged to the side and went sprawling back over the dune as the angel shot tore into him. The worm with a strange dexterity of its lips lifted him and was almost half an ile gone before the next shot fired. Agone waited, but felt nothing.

"Sir, are you okay?"

He pushed himself out of the sand, surprised to find two of his men beside him. He was safe, for the moment.

"I got the bastard, but he's not dead." The sniper complained.

"What happened to Vash the Stampede?" Agone asked, not hearing him, watching the dust trail the sand worm left.

"Huh?"

"Find out, and _fast_ or everyone on this planet is dead." He watched the humans scurry around and try convince him to return to the safety of the ship they had arrived in. He wondered why they bothered. As insane as Knives was, he carried out his threats. It would be an interesting diversion to put a spanner in the works. Agone smiled emptily. But first he had to check on the launch site and see if there was anything to salvage.

* * *

Meryl huddled damply beside Milly in the car as Calor drove through the streets. She was in a fine mood and Abe got the worst of it.

"You'd think they would include windscreen wipers, I mean, don't they have to clean the dust off now and again?"

"No, that would only make mud." Abe said, unwisely, as Calor scowled.

"And what is with this flooding? Don't they have any drainage? This city is going to be four feet under water if this deluge continues!"

"It never rains here." Abe pointed out. "And that was our people's fault for letting No Man's Land engineers do the city planning."

"Never?" Calor grouched at the pouring skies.

Driving out of the city was not much of a problem, though the water slowed them. But once they hit the desert road they managed an ile before they encountered thick sticky mud. Calor climbed out of the car and screamed at the skies in frustration. Meryl clambered out, and stood in the rain, the sticky brown mud sucking at her boots. Calor complained bitterly, but Meryl smiled. As sad and as empty as she felt, she could not get over how much she loved the rain. She had only ever been in rain once before, and that had been as a very small girl, and all she could remember was her father holding her as she reached for the skies.

"Miss Meryl?" Milly held her coat over her head as she squelched through the thick mud. She pointed excitedly.

"Look!"

From the direction of the canyon to which they had been heading came a flying ship. Meryl gaped at it as she recognised it.

"It's Seeds!"

She waved at them as they approached July. To her profound astonishment, the ship sank down to hover several yarz down the road. Brad leaped down from the ramp that opened underneath it. He hauled his foot out of the mud with a squelch and an expression of disgust.

"Is he with you?" Brad called.

Meryl felt as if everything had gone still. She stared at him, as somewhere around her pain clawed at her senses, explaining in raw anguish what had happened to him.

"No." She heard herself say with a treacherous catch to her voice.

Brad gave her a horrified stare, then took in their predicament with the car.

"Get on board." He said tersely. "Where's that Livio guy who was with him?"

"Back in July." Calor said.

"Ah. He's got radio. We'll have him meet us on the roof." Brad said turning away.

"Where are you going?" Calor said.

Brad glanced back at her as he stepped out of the mud onto the ramp.

"We're hunting Vash."

"He's dead." Milly said with a tremor in her voice.

Brad gazed at her with a disgruntled expression.

"Not that guy. I'll only believe that if I see his bones."

* * *

In the room beside the open balcony, they stood wrapped in blankets over their wet clothes. Luida listened to their story as Brad went to find Livio with Panse who assured them that he and the twins were in the kitchen.

"Hmm. From what I've seen, he _is_ very hard to kill." Luida murmured. "Though Brad will err on the side of optimism, and I admit, so must I. Nevertheless, if you believe he's dead, then Knives quite likely believes it too. No wonder the Sand worms are massing in around the cities."

"We've got to find Knives?" Livio said, traipsing into the room with the twins trailing after him. Panse closed the door after them, politely leaving them to their conference. The twins wore Terran style clothes and aside from plasters on their gaunt faces, looked well. They favoured their mother in looks, pale eyes and blond hair. Though Doug had his father's strong jaw and mischievous smile. Meryl marvelled, had she not seen them only months before, she would never have believed they were just over two years old. They looked like they were fourteen or fifteen years old.

"No." Luida answered Livio. "We have to find Vash, or there will be no negotiating with Knives."

"Those brothers." Calor grouched. "They will be the end of me!"

Luida gave her a cool stare.

"No, but perhaps they will be the end of your political shenanigans you have played over this planet, you and your people."

Calor frowned.

"What do you know?"

"That despite the tragedy of Domina's loss, it was to our benefit. It exposed you."

Calor glared and Abe put an arm out in front of her.

"She does not understand." He said abruptly to Calor who looked as though she wanted to punch someone. "We came here to help you." Abe said quietly to Luida. "Yes, we came here with our own agendas, and they have played out as they have. But we honestly wanted to help. Only, now living here as we have done, we realise you don't need the help we thought you did."

"I heard that you came here to loot the world." Brad interjected. "Take the sandworms, the plants, minerals and medical expertise we had."

"I heard you came to settle a score with the plants." Doug said.

Meryl had to look to see who spoke as his voice had broken, he sounded like a young man now. "We heard the talk of the other plants. They weren't only draining people for their power. They wanted revenge on all those plants that kept independent plants subjected. The plants said the one called Calor was the one the assassins were really after. Also among the Terrans you're wanted because it was your decision to go ahead and fire Tall Hammer that stranded everyone here."

"Yes it was, along with the captains of the other ships. Had I not," Calor snapped at him, "Millions Knives would have plundered this planet and killed…"

"Let me clarify." Abe said slightly louder, to interrupt Calor, and nodded at Doug. "We came here to help a people who sent an SOS to Earth. We arrived and found the world on a war footing. This changed things. Had it been a mere rescue and assist operation, our plans would have played out and none would have been any the wiser. We would have rescued people, or set up power stations as required."

He glanced at Doug who was scowling.

"We did not expect to encounter independents here. Neither did we expect to encounter a fused entity with the wit and ability to challenge plant operated warships. In our assessment, we discovered that this world, despite its dependence on plants has enough to allow it to join the Earth government. However, we underestimated the sophistication of its defenders. It is by the deeds of Millions Knives and Vash the Stampede that this planet rises or falls. Yet even as powerful as they are, neither operates alone. Am I right in saying all here stand with Vash the Stampede?"

"I heard the Terran's wanted him to take him back to the Emperor 'cause he's a heaven's gate." Jasmine interrupted. "Why should we work for any Terran's?"

"The last ship that could launch off this world just left." Abe pointed out. "How do you think we're going to get him to Earth if that _were_ our intention?"

"What about the other ships coming from Earth." Jasmine asked with a smirk that would have done Chronica proud.

"There are no other ships." Calor snapped. "If you were watching you'd have seen that ship did not leave the upper atmosphere. Something went wrong, and we have Vash to thank for that. No one is leaving." She finished bitterly.

"Ah." Milly said with such a bright voice that everyone turned to look. "That means nothing has changed." She said with a smile. "We carry on as normal. We keep working and don't give up. That's what _he_ does."

There was a brief silence as people processed her optimism.

"Terran matters aside, are you willing to work with us?" Abe asked eyeing Brad, Luida and the twins in turn.

"I think the question is, Abe," Meryl interrupted, "are you willing to work with Vash the Stampede?"

Abe rolled his eyes.

"Meryl, isn't that what we formed Fifth Moon for?"

"You're Fifth Moon?" Doug exclaimed, his expression incredulous.

Both twins turned to their father. Livio winced and rubbed his head.

"Ow! Talk out loud!" He scolded.

"But Fifth Moon is this super secret organisation that rescues plants and helps people…" Jasmine trailed off, staring. "Which is what you did. Gosh." She nudged her brother. "Doug! Fifth Moon!"

"It's not secret." Meryl exclaimed.

"Sure is since December was bombed." Doug said. "Johnston wanted to find you guys really badly. The only way most of the plants escaped was 'cause of what Fifth Moon did."

Meryl glanced across at Abe who had far too innocent an expression not to be up to something. What had he done in their name?

"What information do you have?" Meryl asked, gazing at Abe.

"Nothing as yet, but we'll have to ask the experts on Vash the Stampede as to where his bolt holes are so we can find him."

"Okay." Meryl said, humouring him. She would grab him later and rattle all the things he _hadn't_ told her out of him. "Do so."

She tried to think of all the people he had as friends who could help. The man made friends by just smiling at people, who would she count as an expert? She was aware of a silence and found Abe, Milly and Calor watching her.

"What?"

Abe smiled.

"Meryl, that's Fifth Moon and our correspondents, Seeds and their field workers, and his close friends. All of whom are here."

She scowled at him, feeling foolish.

"Alright, so what do we know?" She asked, brushing it off.

"He won't be far." Brad said. "Even if he's in top condition he could not have covered more than ten miles."

"He teleported." Calor said. "Either that, or he's dead." She added when Brad opened his mouth to protest.

"Aw crap." Livio exclaimed. "He could be anywhere."

"No, he was hurt. Hurt people go to ground." Calor reasoned. "Where are his bolt holes?"

"That depends on how badly he's hurt." Milly said. "He just goes on if it's manageable, but he lets strangers pick him up if it's bad."

Calor stared at Milly and mouthed " _strangers?"_

Milly nodded.

"He took all those plants with him." Abe murmured. "Where would he go that could sustain hundreds of plants?"

"The dome at Octovern." Luida concluded and waved one of her aides over to redirect the ship.

"That is the heart of the Fed's territory. They put out the bounty notices for Vash and Knives." Livio protested then grimaced. "He would do that, wouldn't he? Walk into enemy territory for the sake of others."

"In that case we need to get there before any incidents can happen." Luida said.

Livio, Panse, Calor, Brad and Luida sat arguing over a map. Meryl stood at the window, watching the rain. She wanted to be out in it, not trapped over some pointless argument of how much ground a wounded plant could cover in a day. She glanced at Milly who stood behind Luida to peer at the map on the table. She caught her eye and left them to their argument as Meryl slipped out of the room. She stood in the hall with one of the maps the Terrans had provided; it was an annotated aerial photograph of the City of Lost July.

"Miss Meryl!" Milly called as she closed the door behind her. "We can help them! They will find Mister Vash, even if he's…" Milly shut her mouth hastily.

Meryl nodded with a bright smile.

"I'm going for a walk." She headed for the stairs.

"But it's raining!" Milly called as Meryl jogged down them.

"Yes. It's his rain!"

"Milly!" Livio called from the room. "Where's Meryl? Brad wanted to ask her about Vash."

Meryl ran. She was not going to stand and cry in front of a committee.


	56. Chapter 56

_**Chapter 56**_

Meryl ran two blocks before she slowed down and caught her breath. She knew July. She had spent her childhood wandering these streets. However, since the Terrans had tried to restore the place, she needed a map. She felt somewhat cheated having to rely on a piece of paper in her hometown. She pressed the fold of paper to the bottom of her pocket. She would use it only as a last resort. She wound her way up to the main road and took a deep breath. Walking along the road with its restored street fronts was eerie. It was almost as if nothing had changed. Only everything had. Water now poured from the sky. Inside the houses were different. It was an eerie, disconcerting experience. She walked half in a memory of dusty sun bleached streets, and half in the increasingly cold reality of the city the Terrans had restored. It was a pale mimic of a dream. Did they not understand they could not restore what was lost? She found she was too tired to be as furious as she wanted to be. She was glad of the rain. She could cry, as the skies were, until she was utterly spent. Then, when exhaustion dried her eyes, the skies would cry her sorrows for her.

She came to a halt, and stood for a long while, staring at a house on the opposite side of the road. Its frontage had been restored right down to the pots of tangled plants at the front door. There were lights on inside, and she could see adults and children within. If this was the dream the Terrans were rebuilding she wanted none of it. It drew too strongly on her memory. If she could but open the door, she would see her mother, and her father, and her brother. She folded her arms across her stomach and forced herself to walk on. Why did the Terrans love old things? There could be no hope dwelling on the past. She glanced back at the home she had known before she turned the corner of into a broad avenue. No. No hope. Yet that family had a future, she only prayed it would be better than the fate that had overtaken hers. She ran, why did more pain appear when she could hardly contain the pain she held?

She staggered up the avenue, to where the wealthy estates had once stood. They had looked out over the city, and even now, amid the rubble that covered the streets, they were a good vantage point from which to see the city. The Terrans had not got this far in their tidying. The destruction suited her darkening mood. However, up on the ridge, the buildings no longer sheltered her from the howling wind. She ducked her head and shivered as the water seeped through her cape. Who would have thought water could be so cold and heavy? She climbed up until she was on top of a broken wall, it was the best vantage point for iles. She could see three quarters of the city, two quarters of which were still rubble. It was then that the peculiar memory shuddered through her. She shivered, not from cold, as all her hair felt as if it stood on end. This was the place from Vash's memory. As calm as he had allowed her to become while facing it, he had not removed it. She still felt the anxious wash of terror and the helplessness at the disastrous loss of control. She squinted at the city. As bad as Vash's memory of July was; it was _his_ memory. She shuddered as love and despair she felt intermingled. It was no use fighting the visions. She was not strong enough. Clenching her fist as if to maintain a grip on reality, she walked along the wall, then dropped down onto rubble. She checked the horizon every few paces as she proceeded through the broken rooms and devastated gardens. She then came to a halt. It was a tiled room, with almost no walls standing, save for where the ancient doorframe still propped up by bricks. She stood with her back to the door, yes. This was the last view Vash had had before his brother had stolen his power. She cringed and tore her eyes away from the city. The memories clawed at her mind, yet there was a limit, as if they had been corralled and allowed no further. She could not dwell on these memories. He had given her a chance to save herself from them; she would not waste that. She took a deep breath to steady the shivers of horror and shock that coursed through her. Find something else, she ferociously instructed herself. She clambered up onto the rubble beside the door and turned until she spotted the mesa ridges. She then stood staring out across the city to the desert. She stood where he had been then, and that was where he had been now.

A movement then caught her eye. She glanced down. It was an old rag, sodden by the rain, and caught by the wind. It reminded her of Vash's dusty sand cape, though it was darker in colour. She stared, and almost fell off the rubble in her haste to get down. There he sat, black hair slicked to his forehead, his eyes guardedly watching her from behind his yellow spectacles. He slouched against the rubble, mostly out of the worst of the driving rain. She wanted to shout at him, pummel him for all he was worth, and most of all demand why he hadn't come to find them.

"Meryl?" He whispered incredulously, as if she were the very last person he had ever expected to see. The astonished uncertainty in his voice was so unlike him that she undid her cape and draped it over him, then after two seconds of standing in the freezing rain, she hastily ducked in to sit beside him herself.

"Why are you up here?" Vash asked, drawing his knees up to shelter under her cloak.

"I was looking for you." Meryl said truthfully. "You have some fairly stark memories of this place."

Vash closed his eyes, the agony clear on his face.

Meryl nudged him hard in the ribs.

"Stop it. I found you because of it."

"Ow ow ow." He breathed.

"Are you hurt, or are you still queasy with the after effects of your plant powers?" Meryl worried.

"Queasy?" He laughed. "You've been spending too much time with the Terrans. I'm fine."

She gave him a level glare and his earnest smile became a guilty grin.

"How do you always know when I'm lying?" He pouted.

"Because you move like a grandpa with a hernia." She pointed out.

"Ow?" He cringed in sympathy with the illustration.

"C'mon. We need to get indoors before we're both frozen to the bone."

Vash found a fixed smile and looked out over July.

"Later." He said as if he wanted to admire the view.

"I never said we had to go back to Seeds or the Terrans."

He glanced at her.

"Meryl? What are you up to?"

"I know you, Vash the Stampede. You like to crawl away and recover on your own. I thought, perhaps this time, you wouldn't mind me along to make stew and change your bandages."

"And to write reports." He eyed her.

"Nope. Not part of Bernadelli any more. No camera either. Not even Fifth Moon. I don't know what I'll do. Run a doughnut stand or something."

Vash gave a snort of laughter.

"You! A doughnut stand! You'd scare all the customers away."

Meryl balled her fist, but having Vash shake with laughter beside her was very distracting.

"That's where you'd come in, charmer." She grouched at him.

"Us? Run away and have a doughnut stand." He exclaimed and laughed, though the laughter became exhausted panting. "What about Milly?"

"I'll ask Abe to distract her." Meryl said succinctly.

"Meryl. No." Vash said softly. "You know who and what I am."

"Oh yes I do." Meryl smiled at him. "That is no reason to leave; it just piles on the reasons to stay."

"But…"

Meryl rolled her eyes and shifted so that she could kneel up beside him. Thinking about this had always brought butterflies to her stomach, now there was only calm.

"Vash?"

He raised a black eyebrow over his pale aqua eye.

"I don't know if I'm ever going to get this opportunity again."

"Yep, sitting in the rain is very unusual." He remarked.

Meryl grabbed him by his shoulders. She was careful in her grip, he wore pins in both shoulders and it was sensitive there. She smiled at the bewildered confusion on his face and leaned in to kiss him. The alarm that flashed through his eyes as he brought up his arm between them was like a kick in the gut. He had reacted in panic, as his arm had curls of feathers protruding from it, his fingers covered in the same maze pattern.

"I am not human." His voice was hoarse with anxiety and sorrow.

She could not reach his face, but that did not stop her. She leaned in and kissed the feather tip. She felt her heart break as through her mind flashed all the times she had flinched from him in his angel form. She gasped, cringing at the hurt he had felt each time, and tears ran down her cheeks. The feathers suddenly vanished and he caught himself as he slumped backward.

She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him. Burying her face against him, he smelt of blood, sweat and that unidentifiable spicy scent she found so desirable. He tried to push her away, his hands folding around her upper arms.

"I know you are afraid of me." He murmured in gentle regret.

She clung on.

"Yes I am, but I love you more! Don't you get it? I watched you die twice. I cannot let you go again without telling you my feelings."

He slowly released the tension and stopped pushing her away. He splayed his hands around her arms, uncertainly. She felt him tentatively put his arms around her as if he could not quite believe it.

* * *

Milly watched Abe as he suddenly stared towards the hill around which July was built. His eyes flickered to Calor who was busy glaring at the map. Something had happened.

"I'm hungry, anyone want pudding?" Milly asked, knowing the only way he would tell her was without the others present.

"I'll pass." Calor said, while Panse and Luida shared a confused look about Milly's offer.

"I'll come chose my own." Abe volunteered and followed her out. Milly saw him glance back at Livio, the man had a slight knowing smile on his face as if he knew what was up.

They walked two flights of stairs before Abe spoke.

"Meryl found Vash." He whispered as if he feared the walls had ears.

"Let's go!" She exclaimed.

"That's the plan." Abe grinned, his voice still low. "Only we're the diversion. We'll meet back in December."

"Oh." Milly considered this. "Mister Vash does have a large bounty on his head. It will be good that Miss Meryl is with him to help him out of trouble."

Abe headed down the stairs smiling to himself. They found the pudding shop and Milly bought a good supply for the road as he bought more regular provisions for a few weeks road trip. It was then that Livio, driving an armoured car on treads, arrived outside the shop and pushed a door open in the rain.

"C'mon Milly."

She clambered in after Abe, to find the twins seated in the broad front seat with their father.

"Oh, you're here too!" She exclaimed. "Are you also going back to December?"

"Yes." Jasmine smiled. "But we have one detour to make."

* * *

Meryl was rather astonished that Vash was still there when she returned with several parcels, including fresh clothing for the both of them. She had expected him to walk off, leaving her to return to the small rented room alone. But she could hear him splashing around in the bathroom. She set the hot takeaways on the small table, and sat cleaning her derringers that had been soaked. Vash had reluctantly taken his gun, and it now lay on the table. She smiled. As reluctant as he had been, he had cleaned it before taking his shower.

She glanced up as the bathroom door opened and Vash put his head out, his black hair in complete disarray from him having rubbed it dry. He looked exhausted, but calmer than he had been on their walk down from the ruins. He took one sniff of the air and perked up.

"Doughnuts!" He exclaimed and crossed the room in three strides to where the doughnuts waited in their bag next to the dinner.

Meryl stared at him. He wore nothing but the towel around his waist. He was even scarred on his feet; she wondered how that had happened. Was he attacked in his sleep, or… she glanced up at him just in time to find him watching her out of the corner of his eye. He gave her a broad grin around the doughnut in his mouth.

"Mmmh-mmh!" From the tone, it was probably thank you.

"Leave some for me." She told him. "And there are clothes in the parcel there."

She stood under the shower warming up. She had been freezing in her wet clothes. Vash had strung several lengths of string across the bathroom to dry his own wet clothes, and she added hers to the lines. Now clean and dry, she walked out clad in a shirt, slacks and clean warm socks. Vash had found the clothing parcel, but had only got as far as putting on trousers before discovering both food and beer. He sat cross-legged on the end of the nearest bed eating his way through the meal. He had left about a third for her, and one can of beer.

"Mm, iff good!" He exclaimed and continued to eat.

Meryl sat down at the table, marvelling. He was still there. Why hadn't he left? She ate, watching his enthusiasm. He carefully put a doughnut next to her plate and then devoured the rest of the bag by himself. She was quite glad he had not put a shirt on, despite all those scars he was very well built and rather a pleasure to observe.

"Meryl."

Vash had been leaning back on the bed waiting for her to finish. She licked her fingers clean of the doughnut sugar.

"Thank you." He sounded sincere, and tired.

She stood up and even though it was only a few steps it felt like a hike of an ile. She could feel the butterflies in her stomach as she reached out and touched his cheek. She wanted to run her fingers down his chest, but did not yet have that courage. Neither did she have the courage to sit beside him on the bed. She grabbed a chair and pulled it over to beside his bed. He yawned and rubbed his eyes as she seated herself and fidgeted. She wanted to speak to him, but all words had suddenly fled. She felt as tired as he looked. She was a little startled when he then reached over and lightly touched her hair with his mechanical hand. She felt relief pour through her, he was still interested. That afternoon had not just been a quirk or sudden weakness of his.

* * *

His whole body ached. That was simply a backlash of his power use. It was uncomfortable to move, but it would ease in a few days. He had let her hug him, simply because he was so very weak. He did not have the strength to keep her at the distance he needed her to be to protect her. He had taken an extra long shower to think about her. All that had happened was that his mind had emptied of all rational thought except, warmth, tiredness and hunger. He had smelled the doughnuts through the door and had hurried out before realising he was not quite dressed. Meryl had responded with silence. This was so unlike her, he thought her shocked, then realised that something about him mesmerised her. If she was so tired so as to be silent, perhaps it would not hurt to stay while he felt so exhausted. Perhaps she needed help too.

She had emerged from the shower scented with that floral soap he could only smell on her for an hour or so after she had showered. She tucked into the meal, her eyes still on him. He remembered his manners and shared one doughnut. It was a wrench, but she had bought them, he owed her that much. She finished her meal neatly, and touched her fingers to her lips. Then with an easy grace, she stood, crossed the floor to him and shyly touched his cheek. He felt his lips part in a silent gasp as he felt both honoured and mortified. She had tried to kiss him before, and he had rejected it. He had had to; she knew the dangers surrounding him. Yet somehow, here he sat, with her in this room. Aching, exhausted, yet feeling warm and full because of her. And now she had renewed her advances, though more gently, using her fingers to transfer her kiss. He felt undone by that tenderness. He could not find his voice to speak.

She grabbed a nearby chair and came to sit near him, he could feel the warmth of her legs near his, and the elusive floral scent wafted over intoxicating him.

"Um, Vash." She mumbled, not meeting his eye, which only intrigued him. "I just want to say I understand. I know you can't have close friends or relationships because of how Knives just kills people."

He felt his heart clench at how scared he felt knowing that she knew that truth. Yet somehow his heart felt lighter. Was this what sharing a worry did?

"I know how lonely you are." She said softly.

He cringed inwardly; he had done his best not to let it show. She was not as sharp as Milly, but she certainly dug deeper than her partner when she discovered something.

"I just want you to know I do care." She said, then mumbled as her cheeks reddened to a very inviting rose. "I, do, ah, love you."

He stared at her helplessly as she fidgeted with her hands in her lap, her eyes not meeting his. He wanted to comfort her, perhaps a hug? Would she like a hug if the last time she had tried to hug him he had pushed her away? He panicked. What should he do? Girls had either avoided or thrown themselves at him. None had sat blushing and was she shivering slightly? Only, Meryl was out of their league. She had somehow wormed her way into his business, his life and as she sat there, his soul. He was suddenly very aware that a hug was only the beginning of what he wanted. Meryl fidgeted, tried to still her shivers and mumbled through her words all conspiring to drive him crazy.

"But," even her voice trembled, "I understand why you don't show it."

Show what? How lonely he was? How could he be lonely with her around?

She froze as in one swift movement he leaned over and took her face between his hands. Her skin was softer than he had dreamed. He kissed her, clumsily and urgently. A sharp gasp made him aware that perhaps he was being too rough. His lips burned as he pulled back panting and blinking.

She was gazing at him with a strange kind of wide eyed calm in her eyes. The shivers had stopped, as had the fidgeting. He smiled then, trying to cram the overwhelming emotions he felt into out of the way so that he could think rationally. All that happened was remorse and sorrow washed in, flooding over the peculiar ecstasy her lips had brought him.

"I'm s-sorry." He whispered, he was the one shaking now.

"Well I'm not!" She declared and stood up.

He gaped at her in panic and alarm as she leaned over him. She somehow worked her small fingers through his hair, sparking off ripples of electric warmth across his body. Then she kissed him, and closed her eyes with a pleasure so private he felt himself blush. He recognised that delight and desire. He felt it himself. It was as if a dam had broken, and he let himself be taken by the torrent of desire and pleasure. He kissed her in return. Not urgently or rushed as he had before, but lingering, questing for more. She leaned back and he placed his hands on her neck, her fingers shifting and he marvelled at how soft his skin was. She explored his shoulders with those small hands of hers. How did she make her fingertips burn so?

"Vash the Stampede, plant, brother to Knives and adopted son of Rem Saverem, that is not all who you are."

He stared at her; he had never heard her talk like this. She sounded furious yet, the way her fingers stroked him was gentle.

"You are a protector, lover and my second best friend."

"Second best friend?" He protested, he had been about to call her on the lover, as that was too new to be spoken aloud, but the friend statement was just an indignity.

"After Milly of course." She said as if it were a matter of fact.

"Er, are you and Milly…" He asked, suddenly cold with worry.

"No, you idiot. We're just friends. On the level of friends, you are second, always. As a lover, you are first."

Vash puzzled over this, reflecting on his relationship with Wolfwood, and now Livio and the aggravating Abe, then he laughed. He understood, and it made him feel a great deal better, though it didn't make what to do with Meryl any clearer. She confused matters even more by leaning over and kissing him again. She had a buttoned shirt on and he had an excellent view of what she thought was covered. He smiled, and kissed her back, liking how she let him take more.

"Good night, Vash." She drew away from him. "If you want any cuddles and kisses, come to me; don't go hunting among the other girls that cross your way."

She ruffled his hair in a surprisingly pleasurable manner and walked across to the other bed.

Vash sat on his bed staring her as she lifted the sheets and climbed into the bed fully clothed. His shoulders tingled where she had touched him, and he could taste her on his lips. Goodness, now he was so wide-awake, he would never get to sleep, and he needed to sleep. He was so tired it was an effort to sit upright. No, despite the rather excellent invitation, he would have to decline. However, with Meryl, one did have to do things directly, or she would get vocal. He would give her a goodnight kiss. He pushed himself to his feet and shuffled his way across to the door. He put out the lights, but left the bathroom lamp on and the door slightly ajar. He caught her watching him, as he stretched gingerly, wincing slightly at new injuries. She yawned and snuggled down comfortably as he did some more stretches to work out the kinks in his muscles. He heard her breathing deepen as she fell asleep. Vash walked silently across to her bed, leaned over and kissed her still damp hair. He took a moment to breathe in her scent. She smelt so good. He fell into his own bed with his back to her, sleep coming slowly.

* * *

Milly was dozing and the twins had fallen asleep shortly after the sun had set. They drove on through the night. Livio and Abe kept up a murmured conversation and Milly only caught snippets

"That Terran, Panse has our back, as does Luida from Seeds." Livio murmured. "I'd watch Calor, she is a wild card."

"She won't turn us over to the Terrans. But I would not trust her with too much. Her loyalty was to Meryl, and Meryl isn't directing anyone right now, so she might go her own way. It's the other Terrans that will be our biggest problem. They will be keen to catch us."

Livio made a deeply unpleasant sound in the back of his throat.

"They are welcome to _try_." He said in a voice silky with menace, as if he almost welcomed the opportunity to unleash mayhem.

"I think I'll stick around then." Abe murmured, pleased. "I truly love this planet. We're free to live by the rules of the heart."

"Love and peace." Milly murmured sleepily as their conversation mingled with her dream.

There was silence.

"He really gets to people." Abe sighed enviously.

"Yes he does." Livio said with a grin. "And the difference is night and day."

* * *

Brad stared out of the ships window as they flew above the rain clouds buffeted by turbulence. The whole area for several iles around July was blanketed in thick cloud. Then the clouds thinned and the upper air currents became still once more.

"All that water." Luida breathed in awe.

"It'll mess the ecosystem up." Calor grouched. "The idiot didn't know what he was doing."

"Oh, I don't know." Brad said for once grudgingly proud of Vash. "This will get everyone's attention stuck on Lost July. Idiocy is his bluff. I think Luida was right about Octovern being the place we'll find the plants, but we won't find Vash there."

Panse leaned against the wall beside them, not looking out at the clouds.

"Calor, you do realise that if any Terrans investigate that burned out ship, they will realise he teleported."

"Perhaps." Calor said, wondering what he was angling at.

"There's going to be an even bigger cry for his head after this. No Man's Land has been clamouring for two years that Vash the Stampede isn't the threat Knives was. But with that action he just took command of a fused entity."

"He was protecting the plants." Calor interrupted defensively.

"We know that." Panse said. "But no Terran can ignore it, intergalactic law states that any plant who tries that is to be shuttered. That's more than a limiting chip, it's a gate limiter. Enough energy to survive, but not enough to live. I've seen the wretches who live under that sentence; Mutare has a better life than they."

Calor eyed Panse, he was telling her that he'd help them in his capacity to keep Vash free.

"You know," Brad observed, "no disrespect, but the more I hear of Earth, the more I am _glad_ that your rescue mission failed."

Panse nodded and Calor stared at the sands outside, her eyes troubled.

"There they go." She murmured, watching a steadily moving armoured car head across the desert in the direction of the city of Octovern.

* * *

Meryl woke the next morning to the tantalising smell of fried egg and bacon. She opened her eyes to find Vash riding a chair, and eating breakfast with a fork. He was dressed in his red coat and had done his hair in its usual spiky style. She stared, if she had thought him a pleasure to observe the night before, it was nothing on his fully clothed self. There was just something about the way he wore that red coat of his, it made her want to find a way to return the pleasure he gave her by existing moment by moment.

"Mornin'!" He called, noticing she was awake. It was still dark out. "The steamer leaves at dawn, and it's half an hour walk to the dock."

"How long do I have?" She yawned.

"Er, two minutes?"

"Two minutes!" She exclaimed, and stumbled out of bed. "Vash!" She snapped irritably at him.

"H-hey, I bought us breakfast!"

She stopped at the bathroom door and stared at him, realising what she was seeing. Vash had not sneaked off on his own. He had waited for her. He had even considered that she might be hungry and tired and had let her sleep. She fought with her pride for a moment, but it roundly lost to her desire. She walked slowly over to him and he smiled as she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. It was a small peck of a kiss. She then hurried back to the bathroom before he could get any ideas and make them later than she was sure to do.


	57. Chapter 57

_**Chapter 57**_

Meryl kept glancing at Vash as they stood at the railing of the steamer, watching the second sunrise through the rain cloud that hung thickly over July. He was wrapped in his brown sand cape and did not seem to be shivering as much as she was. Even though they had found themselves a nook on one of the stair ramps from the lower deck, the very air was cold. By now, even the people of No Man's Land had found the rain something to complain about. It was a week's journey to Octovern, by the tempers on board, it was bound to be a very long week. She could not quite believe that he was still there, and had not left on his quest without her. He also looked warmer than she felt, but she did not have the nerve to cuddle up to him.

"It's so v-very cold out here." He complained. Meryl almost flinched at the speed at which he grabbed her hand. She managed a smile, rather relieved that he finally felt the cold. He led her down the stairs and into the second class berths. It was not anywhere near their spot in steerage, so she was completely surprised when he slipped in through the first door that opened to his pulling of the handles. Meryl gasped as he pulled her into a laundry store cupboard and with a bit of wriggling, closed the door. She giggled as he kept her hugged at his side and pulled the lamp string. He seemed so much taller and intimidating with the light above him.

"M-meryl." He whispered. She felt her delight and joy fade. He had such a morose expression on his face. "You'll die." He said hoarsely.

She was thrown for a moment, then realized she knew this argument. She had lived alongside him too long to know how death and disaster hunted and haunted his soul.

"Vash, why do you think I didn't climb into your bed last night? I know there can be nothing like that between us, until.…" She trailed off.

He gazed at her bewildered.

"Until?"

She pouted at him. This was too personal, but she had to air it some time.

"Vash, you're so scared of death, you don't allow yourself to live."

He straightened, astonished.

"I'm not afraid of death!"

Meryl shook her head; it had come out all wrong. She tried to explain it.

"Yes, I know. You will face death every day to protect others. You, who loves life to the point of wanting to die for it. You live your life for others, not a thought for yourself. You are so damn scared of loosing people forever that you don't trust them with your heart…" She trailed off as she realized Vash was giving her a very sad stare. She knew he was thinking of Wolfwood, she was thinking of Wolfwood. This was such a mess. She had thought she had him figured out. As if people were a puzzle with pieces to be put just so. No. He was more a mystery, some parts never to be fathomed. She had hurt him, again.

To her astonishment he knelt down in the tiny space and put his arms around her. She hugged him back fiercely, hating how gentle he was.

"Meryl, I do love you."

She almost melted hearing those words, but she understood him then.

"I know," she felt her voice tremor, "and it's not enough. I want all of your broken heart and I know I can't have it."

"As a second best friend and broken hearted lover, can we make things work?"

"If he can tolerate bitchy and short stature." Meryl replied sarcastically, not liking the sadness in his question.

She felt his sharp intake of breath and heard the slightly guilty yet unapologetic laugh. She knew he was no saint, and had opinions of his own, though he pretended to be pathetic when it suited him. Mostly around her. Though that breath of a laugh made her remember exactly why she loved him so much, pathetic pretense and all. When he was became serious he was magnificent.

She leaned back in his hug to watch him. He wore an entirely too penetrating expression, he could see her soul, her intentions and she felt the wash of his raw desire. Damn. She had seriously underestimated him again. This was the Vash she loved; this was the Vash that terrified her. She was glad he held her as her knees had given way the moment their eyes had met.

"Meryl." He whispered. "I am not afraid of death. But I am terrified of loosing you, and those who are my close friends. Yes, it is to protect people from my brother that I vanish from time to time. That is who I am. I can't drag others into this mess. I am the only one strong enough to face him, or who has the chance of understanding him. He is my twin. That is important. I know how he thinks, and that gives me the edge."

"Vash, I know you have to chase your brother. We've been doing that for years now." Meryl felt disappointed as the powerful force she felt, lessened into what felt like pathetic excuses.

Vash, for some reason, tightened his arms around her.

"Yes." He kissed her with more tenderness and passion than she had ever felt. Somehow the kiss was part of the argument, and it confused her.

"Meryl. I can't be someone I am not."

She frowned at him.

"Vash, I said you're free to chase your brother. The only thing I asked was that if you needed a kiss and a cuddle, was for you to find me."

He pouted slightly, then his face took on the most determined look she had yet seen.

"Meryl, will you marry me?"

She felt her jaw drop, how had this suddenly become the conversation? Her mind sluggishly tumbled into gear as her heart twisted. How dare he tease her?

"Vash, that is a far more intimate relationship than having a girl on the side." She snapped at him, furiously. "If I'm your wife I will tail your backside and trip you up when I think you need reminding I am there."

To her bewilderment, he smiled at her, and that smoldering look in his eyes had returned.

"I hope so. Meryl, my life is hardship, terror and loneliness. That is all I have to offer you."

"Even with the bitchiness?" She asked snidely. She had promised herself she would not hit him. She clenched her fist in the thick material of his coat.

He smiled broadly, as a mischievous expression lighted his face.

"That's one of the good parts." He trailed a thumb down her jaw as he spoke, sending sensory fireworks across her body. She realized then that he was not teasing, or he was, but he was not mocking her heart. She could hardly think; how could he become even more desirable? She felt a blush flood her cheeks and neck. She took a shaky breath.

"Yes, Vash, I'll marry you." She felt her voice tremor as he gazed at her then. She could not take the heartfelt intensity of the gentleness in his eyes. She fidgeted.

"What made you change your mind?" She could not seem to drag her eyes from his.

The way he leaned back and the way he slowly gazed from her feet to her head was no answer at all, yet all the answer in the world. She hated him then. She hated him as he pulled her closer and she buried her face in his shoulder. Why did he have such power over her? She sighed and relaxed against him, allowing it to flow through her. It was glorious yet terrifying. If he felt as she did now, what in the world was he thinking wanting her? Surely, it could not be the same. Yet the way he rubbed his hand on her back, and still had that fiery expression in his eyes, it seemed as though it was.

"Love," he whispered and kissed her as he spoke, "and peace."

.

A week, stuck on a steamer with Vash the Stampede, felt like a lifetime. Meryl was sure she had ten more grey hairs than when she had boarded. She loved how, even though they had no designated space to call their own in steerage, he had found them a nook where they could sleep. It had been odd but comfortable to have his warmth to add to her own. He had tried to keep a low profile, mostly sleeping, or sitting curled up with the small computer. She had not minded, as he had let her rest her head on his chest and simply be with him. Aside from those quiet moments, she had her work cut out. He would wonder off when he thought her asleep, and she would find him in various places all over the ship. The plant engineers all knew who he was, and she found him one night talking to his sister plants. He had found her much later, curled up in a chair near the control desk, asleep. The engineers on duty signing that it was his job to wake her, they were not having anything to do with her temper. The next night she had shot one of the thugs who had tried to take him for bounty, while he had tried to arrange a ceasefire on the upper deck. They had all been had up for attempted shooting, and after everything had been explained, the culprits had been dumped in the desert. Vash had thrown water bottles to them as he had pointed out the nearest town, twenty iles away. Then there had been the incident with the escaped tomas – why anyone brought tomases on board a steamer she did not know. Then there had been a brief attempted holdup, but Vash had fallen off the upper railing, trying to see what was going on, and had landed on the gang leaders head. There was also the idiot who had tried to kidnap her and send Vash a ransom note. She had managed to free herself, and tie up her guards, and reach Vash just as the kidnapper handed him the note. She had smacked the foolish man and snatched the letter away and ripped it to pieces before Vash could get wind of what it said. She had quite enjoyed threatening him with her small derringer as Vash loomed behind her becoming increasingly more discontented as the man had blustered through a paper thin explanation.

The last two nights, they saw sandworms in the distance. The steamer crew picked up speed, and everyone was on edge. Vash stood on the upper deck, staring grimly out at them.

All in all, she was delighted to see the city of Octovern. The lights glittered in the hazy dawn light before the first sun rose. Vash put his arm around her as they watched it come into view from the upper deck of the steamer.

"Meryl." He whispered.

The harmonic in his voice made her look sharply at him. His eyes were sad yet determined. She reached up and put her hand over his mouth.

"I know. I love you."

He wrapped his long arms around her, far too tightly. She gritted her teeth trying not to complain.

"I will find you again."

"Don't make promises you can't keep." She muttered into his coat. "I'll find you."

He released her slightly.

"Oh, and Vash." She murmured. "Tell Knives thanks for saving me."

Vash stared at her in utter bewilderment. She smiled at him and pushed him away.

"Get going before they can see you."

"You spoke to Knives?" He whispered in horror.

"No, he dragged me out of the lightning storm you made of Agone's ship. Not pleasant. Just tell him thanks."

He continued to stand there like a gormless idiot for a moment, so Meryl climbed the railing and leaned over so she could reach his face and kissed him. He came back to himself with an abrupt shock and grabbed her before she could overbalance and fall over the side.

"Get going, you broomheaded idiot!" She hissed at him. If he hung around any longer she would cry.

Meryl mingled with the crowd in steerage taking care to shrug a blanket over her rather recognisable white cloak. It was mid morning by the time the steamer docked, and an hour till noon when she disembarked with a large noisy family. Frustratingly, she still found herself followed. She wound a circumspect route around the city, then lost them on walking into the Bernadelli Insurance building, and taking the lesser known exit on a side alley. To her astonishment she stepped out to encounter Milly who was lounging in the noon shadows of the building opposite.

"I knew it!" Milly laughed. "It's just like you Miss Meryl!"

* * *

Vash found a balcony seat at a nearby saloon to watch the denizens of Octovern. He marvelled. The place had not changed much since he had last been there. There were more Terrans now, and the skies were not filled with hostile Terran ships or a massive fused entity as they had been then. The crowds of people were the same though. The arrival of the Steamer only made that worse.

He sipped at his beer and felt ill. Now that he was here, he would actually have to do something about Knives and Agone. It would be a disaster with all these people. Why did they always chose a city? The planet was one big desert, there was endless plains available. Perhaps this just upped the ante. He breathed shallowly as the idea sickened him. He clutched at his drink trying to think of a way to get around it. He could see the dome in the distance, though how to get there through the warren of the downtown alleys he was not sure. He had left Meryl on the steamer to keep her safe. He had not wanted to tell her that, or she would have marched directly into danger. He rather loved that fearlessness of hers, but it ate large chunks of worry into his gut. Today he had rather too much churning in his mind to add her to the mix. He wanted to both protect her and cheer her on, which didn't make him feel any better about leaving her. What he really wanted now was one of her shyly brazen kisses that she delivered with much embarrassment if he had his eyes open. He self-consciously marvelled at how he had to deliberately put her aside in his mind to think. As he ran through increasingly desperate plans in his mind, he was distracted when he saw Meryl disembark from the steamer. He felt his stomach settle slightly. Ah yes, she was here. How was it that her presence calmed him to such an extent? Comforted, he smiled. His smile became a grimace of fury as two people left the shadows and fell into her wake. How dare they notice her? He paid for his drink then followed them. This would be an excellent way to get rid of his tension.

She entered the Bernadelli building and the people tailing her did not follow. He did not follow, simply because Bernadelli was the one institution where everyone was sure to know what he looked like. He slunk up to the two people, they were young teens, carrying arms but poorly concealed. He was just about to give them his most frightening growl when he recognised them. They had been the kids Livio had rescued from the slavers.

"Bill? Lil'Jack?"

They jumped and he found himself facing two frightened boys, though they hid it well. The way their fingers twitched on their triggers and their gun muzzles wandered all over the place was a dead giveaway.

"Vash!" Bill breathed with relief. "So that was Meryl Stryfe we saw."

"Yeah." He nodded. "What do you want her for?"

"She's good with bad guys. But you're better. C'mon."

"What happened?"

"They threatened Miss Jasmine!" Lil'Jack exclaimed.

That would not do. Vash followed them through the maze of alleys through downtown Octovern and arrived outside a three story institution. A large black car was parked outside. Vash could see his own reflection in the polish, the chauffeur gave him a filthy glare as they passed.

"Hurry! They're still inside." Bill and his friend hurried up the stairs.

Vash let them enter through the front door as he slipped through the open window further down the front porch. Partly concealed by a curtain, he checked the room out. Miss Jasmine stood with her back to him, her shoulders tensed and her fists clenched as the oiliest man Vash had ever seen stood sprouting nonsense.

"So if you miss an instalment again, dearie, we'll have to find ways to recompense…"

"I have paid what is due this month. Ask at the office." She snapped.

"Do you have a receipt?"

"I, er…"

"No receipt, such a pity…"

"That is because someone stole my purse with the receipt!" Miss Jasmine lost her temper.

"Now now, we will let you go this month, we are not unreasonable. But we expect full payment by the fifth of next month. Good afternoon."

Miss Jasmine collapsed into the chair as they left, and Vash heard the car drive off. He stepped out from behind the curtain.

"Money lenders?"

Miss Jasmine gave a shriek which brought half the orphanage into the front parlour. Many of the children armed with lethal weapons. That was what decided it for Vash. She shouted for calm among the children, then turned to him.

"What are you doing here?"

"Bill asked for my help." Vash smiled as she gave him a shakily hopeful stare. "But I know someone who is even better qualified to help you."

Bill gave a sudden gasp of fierce delight.

"Mister Nail Man?"

Vash nodded as he wondered why the orphans of the Octovern orphanage called Livio that.

"Is he here?"

"Yep." Vash grinned. "And I think he'd be in the sort of mood to go and stand on the heads of certain persistent callers."

To his dismay, Miss Jasmine burst into tears, though she was smiling. Perhaps this was not bad?

"H-hey! Er, come with me, I'll take you to him."

* * *

Meryl grinned at her partner as Milly waved for her to follow. She ducked into a boarding house a few blocks away where they had rented a room.

Livio was pacing at the door with Jasmine trailing after him.

"You can't go, Dad!" She hissed at him, for what looked like the hundredth time, as Livio saw them and pointed.

"At last!" He turned to his daughter and hesitated. He opened and closed his mouth a few times and turned abruptly away. Jasmine curled her fingers around a fold in the back of his shirt.

"It's okay Dad, I know I nag like Mom used to do."

Livio did not turn around, but gathered her under one arm. A moment later Douglas joined them. Meryl slipped past the private circle of grief, following Milly further into the room. For an irrational moment she felt like giving them all a hug. She turned stiffly and hastened over to the table where Brad, Luida and Panse sat. Calor and Abe were over at another table, but they abandoned their bottle cap poker to join them.

"You're all here?" Meryl smiled in relief.

"Yup, been here two days with Mister Livio's driving and all." Milly said happily. "Calor was the clever one and flew in with Mister Brad and Miss Luida."

"All except for Vash," Calor said in a subdued tone, "I'm sorry Meryl."

Meryl felt irrationally that she wanted to keep his presence in the city a secret. She fidgeted.

"He's here." Douglas said from the door.

She turned and scowled at him. Just as she had thought she could keep it a secret.

"Yeah, Vash is here." She told them. "He's going to try and confront Knives to try and keep him away from the dome."

"Er, Miss Meryl." Milly murmured. "Mister Knives thinks Mister Vash is dead! He ordered all the plants in the dome to be surrendered to him, or he would level the city then take them."

"Knives actually said that?" Meryl said incredulously. "He's not the type to ask permission."

"I thought it strange," Milly agreed, "but it did sound like him on the Satellite."

"Then we need to get to the dome and warn the engineers what is actually going on."

"If they'll let us anywhere near!" Milly worried and hurried after her.

Meryl stumbled to a halt. Walking down the street with a young lady accompanied by a teenage boy, was Vash.

"I said he was here." Douglas said pointedly from behind her.

Meryl stepped to one side to let them in at the door. Miss Jasmine and Bill entered the room with a brief greeting, and Vash smiled broadly at her. Meryl froze, now, with everyone else there, it felt as though everything had gone back to the way it had been before. She stepped back to let him through, but he simply swooped over and wrapped his arms around her.

"I miss not seeing you all the time." He said and kissed her on the cheek, then was through the door before Meryl could fend him off.

There was dead silence then someone gave a wolf whistle and Livio started clapping. Meryl felt her entire body flush crimson as Vash grinned stupidly at the group as many of them took up the clapping.

"You idiot, not only are you alive, you caught yourself a girl!" Livio scolded him.

Milly then stepped in front of Vash.

"Mister Vash."

"Ah, Milly!" Vash said brightly.

Milly eyed him, then hefted her stun gun.

"You look after Miss Meryl well."

Vash grinned gingerly.

"O-okay."

Meryl stayed at the door as Miss Jasmine peered up at Vash.

"So you really are him. The wanted outlaw? The one on that TV show?"

Vash winced and Meryl leaned back against the wall as Milly joined her with a happy thumbs up. Meryl did her best not to meet anyone's eye. That TV show, goodness, it felt like those times were years ago.

"Yes." Vash said simply.

Miss Jasmine folded her hands.

"Thank you for your kindness in bringing me here to meet those who could help. But my problem is very small. I would hear why these people have come. If you are the real Vash the Stampede, and you know these folk, then I think they bring a serious matter with them."

Vash nodded.

"I need to meet my brother again. I brought you here so they could help you with the orphanage."

"Your brother?" Miss Jasmine exclaimed. "But the reports say Millions Knives is dead."

"He's not." Calor explained. "But Vash, he thinks you are dead."

"Good." Vash sighed in relief. "Then I can be John Smith, an innocent man, a while longer."

"No, you don't understand!" Calor snapped, as she marched across the room. "He thinks Agone killed you and is setting the plants he controls and the sandworms against the world."

"Why would he do that?" Vash gaped at her in dismay.

"He has no reason to live." Abe said quietly.

"Vash, you know Knives." Livio said seriously. "You were more than his counterfoil. You were his rock in the chaos of his life. As far as he went, he knew always, that you would be there to pull him back, even if he sought death with his whole heart. "

An expression of utter horror overcame Vash's face.

"H-he won't stop." Vash breathed.

"No, and what chance does this world have against him?"

Vash concentrated then swayed on his feet. Doug leaped over and grabbed his arm.

"Vash, what have you done?" The young plant demanded. "I can't even sense you're a plant."

Abe, Calor and Jasmine hurried over and Vash tried to fend off their touches.

"I'm fine, I just need a little sleep."

Calor smacked him and he jumped.

"Ow!" Vash rubbed his arm and sidled away from her.

"You're a heaven's gate, take the energy, or you will not wake if you sleep tonight." She growled at him.

"Wha-"

Jasmine screwed up her face in concentration and opened her hand. An orb of light hovered above it. Vash gaped at her.

"No, you will drain your own power."

Calor smacked him again.

"Take it, idiot."

"Vash." Luida said calmly. "If you die, you cannot protect all that you fought so hard to protect. Is it so hard to take some assistance?"

Vash gazed at her.

"You don't understand. If a plant gives another plant their power, they are diminishing their own life."

"And a man may choose to leap into quick sand to save a child, or he may watch the child die. Or he might be wise and let his friends tie a rope around his waist so that he and the child might be saved."

Vash truculently eyed the energy orb, then reached out his hand. As he did so it dimmed and vanished. Jasmine gaped at him with an awed kind of wonder.

"What?" Doug leaned in and looked at Vash trying to see what his sister had discovered. Jasmine grabbed his hand.

"Doug, check it out, his power."

Vash found himself faced with four plants with knowing stares, as if he should somehow understand something of significance in their expressions.

"Heaven's gate's are quite something." Calor said softly to them, then smiled at Vash. "Let your brother know you live."

Vash self consciously tried to sense where Knives was. He could barely sense the four plants in front of him, let alone the orb plants in the city.

"Here!" Jasmine and Doug grabbed hands and linked with his.

He flinched at the flow of power. The search rippled across the sands, touching the orb plants briefly, searching for Knives.

(Ah, Vash the Stampede.) Vash flinched as Agone's voice echoed around him. (So you are alive, and, ah ha, you are searching for your brother.)

(Ugh! Get out of it, you piece of toma dung!) Jasmine snapped.

(What's this, Vash, little parasites?)

Vash hauled his hands back as he withdrew the power of the search and flung what remaining power he had out to protect the twins. He dropped to his knees with the searing pain that flared through his mind. He managed to shove the twins apart, breaking their link and power. But it was too late, Agone whipped another attack through the link. He lost consciousness.

* * *

Meryl watched in bemusement as the plants gathered around each other, scolding Vash and trying to coax him to take what power they could give him. Even in that they acted human, then, in the blink of an eye, they shifted over into the strange realm of the other existence that encompassed plants. Meryl noticed everyone else watching with fascination. In Livio's case, more than a little horror. He seemed as if he wanted to haul his children away, and was clawing his fingers into the chair to stop himself.

Vash then shuddered and fell to his knees. Meryl darted to her feet, alarmed that the twins had somehow hurt him. He shoved them away from him so forcefully, she knew she was right in her assessment. But then he did something odd. He ducked his head under his own arms and the weird spidery cracks shattered across his skin and feathers formed, enclosing him and protecting him. Livio snatched Miss Jasmine away and Brad scooped Luida up and was on the far side of the room before Meryl even thought to move. Abe moved quicker than she could see, and was crouched with a hand over each of the twin's heads. Calor flared her own feathers as if to keep Vash's enclosed. Vash sat in a half crouch, surrounded by long filaments that flickered out at Calor, warning her away.

After realising he was stable she backed away. Meryl stared. She had seen Vash do this before.

"Vash!" She called, approaching slowly.

"Stay back!" Calor snapped, tersely. "Those can kill with a touch."

"He won't touch me with them." Meryl said calmly.

She stepped over Doug who lay on the floor. Livio had set Miss Jasmine down beside Brad and Luida and cautiously approached Abe who was trying to rouse the twins to consciousness.

"Stay back!" Calor raised a hand, unthinkingly splaying out feathers as well.

Meryl slowly stepped around the plant's hand and feathers, feeling the wave of terror at the plant power. Yet knowing Vash was on the other side of it, somehow calmed her. She could face the fear, endure the fear, for him.

Calor grasped her arm to stop her. Meryl did not look at her, but put her own had over Calor's and crouched slightly so her head was the same height as Vash's. She always forgot how tall he was whenever she was out of his presence. It was impossible to forget when he was there. She reached out to him and gritted her teeth as all the filaments around him suddenly converged around her hand. Calor flinched and released her.

"Vash?" She whispered. "It's me. Meryl. Come on, come back. Stop fighting. Come back."

She reached in and touched his face.

She flinched as suddenly the filaments were not only enclosing her hand but the whole of her. But instead of the sheer edges of knives, she felt a soft warmth and a faint tingling of energy. It was the most bewildering experience. The filament tips looked like crystal feathers, shards of unimaginable sharpness.

"Vash!" She called again and reached out with her other hand and slowly put it on his shoulder.

"Come back." She called.

She was dimly aware of a sudden stream of some of the dirtiest language she had ever heard, abruptly halted by a sharp slap.

"I heard you say every one of those words yourself, dad!" Doug protested in a surly manner.

"And I regret ever saying them." Livio counted. "When you are a man, walk a better path than I."

"Only, I'm a plant too!" Doug protested.

"Then follow his example, and act, instead of speaking." Livio jerked his chin at Vash.

"Jasmine?" Doug noticed his sister. "Hey! Jasmine, wake up!" He called in increasing alarm, and Meryl tried calling to Vash again.

She managed to draw his arms in from the clawed position they had been in and settled them in his lap. He knelt on the floor, unseeing. His eyes were white and plant glazed. She called again, and again. Jasmine woke behind her and Meryl was shocked to hear her vocabulary was more erudite than her brothers.

"Young lady!" Livio exclaimed.

"Why didn't you hit her?" Doug grouched.

"You don't hit girls." Jasmine said snidely and rubbed her head as if sensing the after effects of the fight.

"No, but you have a month's cleaning chores for that." Livio stated darkly.

"Dad, you're such a grouch. I feel like something kicked my head in."

Livio sat down between them and hugged them to his chest, knocking them against each other.

"I'm just so glad you two are not dead!"

Meryl grew tired of crouching in front of Vash. She sat down, cross legged before him and took his hands in hers. He did not respond when she called him. The filaments flickered around her, some morphing into regular feathers. Meryl reached out and gathered the feathers and filaments she could reach.

"You can put these down, relax." She tugged at them, ignoring Calor's alarmed squeak from beside her. The feathers retreated, and she was sure some of the filaments retracted, not to return. She kept at it. She then realised there were no more filaments, only solid feathers. Even if the feathers were the strange kind plants had. They were soft when sifting, but could harden to a substance harder than diamond and sharper than the best steel blade.

* * *

"Vash!"

He gazed at her with his eerie blank plant eyes, and tilted his head as if he saw her. His eyes widened in alarm. He screwed up his face as if exerting a great effort of will and the feathers and cracked mazing on his skin vanished. He swayed where he sat, as if it were an effort to sit upright.

"Meryl!" He panted. "I could have killed you!"

She smiled up at him in utter relief. He was himself once more.

"But you did not. I'm glad you're back."

He looked around the room, Meryl did too. Milly lay curled up on the long couch at the far end of the room asleep. Abe was lying on the floor next to it, his head on a pillow, snoring slightly. Livio, Jasmine, Douglas, Brad and Luida were nowhere to be seen. Calor was slumped in the great wing chair, asleep.

"Meryl, how long have I been out?" Vash asked hesitantly.

It was one in the morning.

"A few hours."

He shuddered.

"I lost control." He breathed in a dreadful horror.

"No, you protected yourself. The twins explained what happened. Abe said you were using your automatic defences. The others tried, but I was the only one to get in."

"I heard you." He mumbled. "I thought it was a dream."

He leaned back, seeming steadier now.

"I couldn't contact Knives."

"I know."

Vash clenched his fist then let out a ragged sigh.

"I'm not strong enough." He hissed in frustration.

"It's okay. You did what you could."

He sighed.

"He did this years ago, too. I searched for him but could not find him. Knives is not that good at hiding. He deals in trouble too deep to go unnoticed. He revealed himself then. He will reveal himself again." Vash gave her a very sad look. "But you know the cost of waiting."

Meryl wanted to hug him, but she knew that deep sorrow of his now. She could not help him carry it, but could only remind him that he had friends he could count on.

"We will find him." Meryl said with confidence, though she shuddered to think of the outcome.

Vash yawned.

"I am going to fall asleep on the spot. Are there any more cushions to be had?"

Meryl found two, and was surprised when Vash dragged two padded sitting chairs together.

"You're tiny enough, you can sleep there."

He put the pillows on the floor. Meryl peered over the chairs and looked down at him. He lay still and his eyes closed. She walked around the chairs when she was sure he was asleep, and settled on the floor near him, her head resting on her arm. She relaxed and fell asleep.


	58. Chapter 58

_**Chapter 58**_

At the first hint of dawn Vash lifted Meryl to lie in the chairs, she seemed to settle more comfortably. He left the room and walked outside to think. Knives. He was so anxious he could not relax enough to fall asleep again. He knew full well what his brother was capable of, and now combined with the unpredictable nature of the sandworms… who knew? But, perhaps that would be their salvation. As harsh and strange as the sandworms were, they had a peculiar code of honour. They wanted strength to continue their existence on the world. That in itself would give Knives pause in attempting to destroy the entire world. However, it still left a vast amount of scope for unspeakable destruction. He groaned and let his head fall to his arms. Agone, he had no idea what he had unleashed onto the world.

"Don't try carry it all alone."

Vash jumped as Livio seated himself beside him.

He put his chin in his hands and stared up at the stars made faint by the city lights.

"I'm not." He said.

"Mmmh." Livio smiled. "Thanks for getting Miss Jasmine to tell us about those thugs threatening the orphanage. We've made it perfectly clear that such threats are unwelcome."

There was a thunderous explosion that came from the north end of the city.

"Miss Jasmine!" Livio leaped to his feet and took the stairs three at a time to the upper roof of the building, Vash hot on his heels. The explosion had not come from the orphanage, though it was close. Vash raised his hand to peer through the steadily brightening light of pre dawn. Across the city they could see the dome, and above it, hovering Agone's ship.

"The thieving son of a bitch is taking our plants!" Livio yelled.

However, Vash had already left; this would call Knives like nothing else.

* * *

Meryl and Milly had fallen behind; Vash was fitter, faster and more determined than they were. He raced to the north quarter of Octovern, where the cracked dome protected the plants. Agone had lowered hummock like cradles, and had raised the plants up with the ease and expertise of someone who had done this many times. If the Feds had any doubt as to the plant thief, it was nullified by the speed and precision with which he worked.

It was Abe grabbing them and hauling them down a side alley that saved them. Three huge deep desert worms undulated down the main street, flattening any debris that got in their way. Cars, stalls, fountains all suffered the same fate.

"Mister Knives and Mister Agone!" Milly panicked. "It's going to be just like last time!"

"Not if we have any say." Abe said grimly. "C'mon!"

They ran.

Then lights lit up the inner dome as Knives rose up within the dome itself. The engineers yelled and fled their posts, but Knives ignored them. He stood atop the sand worm, gazing up at the ship hovering too high out of reach to be easily shot down. If he created a fused entity now, the combined retaliation of the Feds and the Earth Federation Peace Force would kill him. Or would eradicate the city trying. Vash darted through the crowd, now distracted even from Agone, by his brother. He had no way to draw Knives out, trapped in the dome where he was. Only he did not realize that the dome was a trap, or could become one, even as cracked as it was. Vash plunged in, forcing his way through the Terran enforcers who were stationed to keep Knives contained, not people out.

"Hey, you're gonna die!" They called after him.

"That's him!" A more astute observer called as Vash tapped Chronica's security code in at the door and it opened for him.

"It's Vash the Stampede, back from the dead!"

"It's a pretender!" Another exclaimed.

Meryl faltered in her footsteps as she came to the ring of arguing guards. Milly came up behind her, the stun gun over her shoulder.

They both watched as Vash picked his way through his sisters. The Sergeant in charge of the guards locked the door and waved his men to cover it more closely than they had been.

"He's not leaving this way."

Meryl shrunk against Milly. Vash was still a wanted man.

* * *

He was there. Ahead of him. Vash took out his revolver and fired a warning shot over his brother's head. Knives spun on his heel.

(We have about thirty seconds before they raise the containment!) Vash called to Knives.

Knives just stared at him, his jaw hanging for a full second. He did not waste time with stupid observations about the brother he thought dead being alive. The worm just turned and dove. Knives grabbed Vash by the waist as he passed and hauled him into the earth.

* * *

Meryl felt her stomach twist in panic and nausea as the containment fired up a whole ten seconds too late. He was gone. Knives had taken him. The hive mind had taken him. Though the hive mind for some reason feared Vash, they had taken him. Meryl gulped a deep breath. She could not go to pieces now. She would find Vash, even if all that was left was his bones. She turned on her heel and Milly had to run to keep up with her.

"Miss Meryl, where are we going?"

"To find the First Leader and get him to take us to Knives's Lair!" Meryl exclaimed.

There was a sudden almighty explosion behind them. Meryl was knocked flat, and Milly went tumbling. They climbed to their feet, their ears ringing, unable to hear each others' bewildered questions. Behind them the globe was completely cracked.

* * *

Livio watched Vash sprint out of sight. He could have chased him, helped him, but he did not. He turned to see an elderly man seated on top of the water tank of the building alongside the boarding house. He casually supported a Punisher across his shoulder.

"You were going to fight Vash." Livio growled at Master Rue.

The man gazed steadily at him, one eyebrow raised. Livio then caught the silhouette of a man standing on top of a worm near the great dome. He felt his blood run cold. Millions Knives.

"He ordered you here?"

Master Rue gave a dark chuckle.

"No. Not all of my Master's wishes are spoken. Perhaps it is the same for you?" He then glanced up at the ship hovering above the dome.

In the instant Livio took to look and turn back to Master Rue, the man had vanished. Livio felt a shiver snake down his spine. There was something utterly eerie, yet somehow reassuring about that. If Master Rue, on a much older enhancement than he himself had been subjected to, could perform such feats, what possibilities were open to him?

* * *

Vash clung to his brother, startled at how the sand worms used a peculiar force field to drill and protect themselves. All the insects and humans associated with the worms were assimilated into that field. Knives had forcefully jammed his face against the rough scales that covered the worm, and had thrown himself over him, in order to include him in the shield. The worm suddenly slowed and Knives cussed vilely under his breath.

"Your precious humans have built this place on bedrock, we can't get out."

"H-how did you get in?" He asked, irritated.

"There are twenty _feels_ of soil above the bedrock, but the shield is drilled into the bedrock, and now it is active."

"I could blast us out of here. But I'd need to break the dome. The fracture would be the weakest part."

"If you fire your arm cannon once more you will die, fool!"

"No. I can do it if I'm careful. Watch."

Knives cussed foully and slammed his hand over Vash's tiny plasma ball he created.

"You're hurting the worm!" He knuckled Vash in the shoulder just to make sure he understood he was to not repeat that. "Only do it when we surface and the worm rears up. And throw it away from us."

* * *

Livio stood at the door of the shuttle and stared down at the city below. He could barely make out the city blocks, let alone the individual buildings.

"Livio, this is crazy."

He glanced at Luida who was watching him from behind the sealed door of the cockpit. She was clutching the microphone of her radio with both hands. Brad watched solemnly from the pilot's seat.

"It's the only shot we have." He grinned at them. "I'm tougher than I look."

Luida's face went white at that.

" _He_ said that too." She whispered so quietly that it was almost static to his ear.

"Then tell him, it is not his fault if I don't make it." Livio said, then jumped.

There were ways to raid inaccessible places. Ways to enter buildings unseen. Yet to do something unexpected, it helped to remember people never seemed to look up for a possible threat.

It took all of his quick reflexes and strength to settle the fall into something he could direct. He used the parachute as a last resort, a brake to his falling speed. Yet he still hit the ship with a hefty thud. A moment later, he had slipped the harness, letting the wind tangle it with the various fins and instruments attached to the ships side. He found the emergency hatch and with Luida's master key let himself in. Who would have thought that Seeds would have something as simple as a standard system for all their ships?

* * *

Vash had no time to prepare his shot. The worm ascended far more swiftly than it had descended. They powered out of the ground as the worm broke through the surface. Vash leaned away from the worm and with his revolver, fired at the fracture in the dome above. There was a thunderous crack as the first shot struck, and the shield drew the power across the whole dome. Knives cried out as it was like being doused in fire. Vash concentrated and focused his power as Chronica had taught him. He could feel the shell in the gun change to his requirements, and fired. This time, he released a far tinier but greatly more dense shot at the weakest point of the fracture. The dome exploded outwards. The worm avoided the falling debris and reared towards the nearest crack.

Standing on the upper surface of the dome, Agone gave a roar of rage as the shield went up. This had been his very last chance to escape this world. He then spat fury and fire as the shield went down, only to reveal both Knives and Vash. There was a thunderous crack as the annoying plant in the silly red duster took out the ships port stabilisers by firing that damned revolver of his. Some people did not know when they were beaten. He flung out an energy pulse at them. Vash fired at it, and Agone stared. They had said Knives was phenomenal when it came to nullification, and he did it with his own created negation pulses. However, Vash was something else; he did the same with pre-constructed bullets and shot them exactly to hit their target when the charge matched that of the bullet loaded. It was almost poetic to watch. Agone flinched as a bullet skimmed his head. Focus on the fight, or he would be dead.

Vash stumbled at the blow, throwing out a shield to protect himself and Knives. He could hold his own, but the borrowed power was gone. There was no time to gather more. No one to ask. The orb plants around him were as drained and exhausted as he. He shook as he pushed himself to his knees. He had to get up. He shuddered as he forced himself to his feet once more. He wiped the blood off his face and stared at Agone. The Plant looked as bloodied and drained as he felt. Agone gaped at him incredulously, still gripping his arm where Vash had shot him.

"You're like a cockroach!" He exclaimed, furiously. "You just don't die."

Vash opened his mouth to deliver the first thing that came to mind, it was witty, or would have been.

Agone raised his uninjured arm so swiftly it was pure instinct that raised a feathery shield around Vash as pure energy pulsed over him. It threw him off his feet, and his mind into oblivion. When he next was conscious, seconds or hours later, he could not be sure. Possibly seconds, because all that had changed was Agone was no longer watching him. He was staring down at the Octovern Dome. The ship above him opening the doors to receive the plants it required for full capacity.

* * *

Livio walked through the ship, mulling over his memories. It was a hollow shell of a transport, the inside mostly hollowed out for orb plant transportation. There were at least two hundred affixed to the walls, and more battery units towards the lower end of the ship. The bridge was to the fore, and he had no desire to entangle himself with the people who served Agone. The engineers rooms were amidships and he avoided those too, as he could not see Vash or Knives going down without a fight for those Octovern plants. It would cost Agone to collect them.

He paused at an observation window; below he could see the brothers and a Sandworm facing off against Agone. He shuddered as a sharp memory collided with his own concentration. Agone, his best friend, walking along a tree lined lakeside. Beside him a tall woman, with deep honey blond hair. His older sister, Domina.

Livio blinked and shook his head. Damn Teres. Those poisonous black feathers had fed him memories so strong they overrode his waking mind. Livio grimaced. For all Teres had done, this, he felt was the worst. The memories took him at odd lulls in his concentration and more strongly if his own thoughts picked up on a commonality. Just thinking about Agone made them cascade confusingly through his mind. Yet, as confusing as they were, they held enough information to make him sure of the layout of the ship. He walked on.

* * *

Vash half smiled as a shadow fell across his face and he found his brother staring down at him. Knives' ice blue eyes held an exhausted wariness. Not from the fatigue of the fight, but the tedious amount of patience required to tolerate his younger brother's weaknesses.

(Idiot.) Knives said disdainfully, knelt down, and with an astonishing gentleness splayed his hand across Vash's solar plexus.

Vash choked in silent agony as he felt power sear through him. Then the exhaustion was gone. Vash pushed himself to his feet, feeling wrung out and shaky. The power Knives had given him was powerful but unstable. It took all he had to corral it and not immediately channel it away from him. He staggered, but took care not to fall against Knives.

(Can you fire a gun in that state?) Knives asked derisively.

Vash gave him a hurt stare, of course he could. He tried to answer but his tongue was thick. He nodded, then stopped as his head felt as if it were about to come off.

(If I don't succeed, take out his left arm gate.) Knives declared. He leaped forward towards Agone. The plant spun around sensing Knives behind him and threw out a defence. Knives batted it aside, using exactly the amount of power necessary to deconstruct what was thrown at him.

(Where are you going with all those plants?) Knives broadcast his thoughts so strongly that it was like a shout right in Vash's ears. Agone's eyes narrowed, but he showed no other sign of pain.

(Are you so provincial you cannot guess?) Agone asked incredulously, responding with the same painfully loud broadcast strength. (Far away from this god forsaken rock.)

Knives made a gesture Vash knew very well, it was one he saw frequently. Knives drawing in fury at the sheer stupidity of the individual in front of him. He was giving Agone a chance, if he had thought the stupidity beyond redemption, he would have acted immediately.

(You fool. They will not accept you anywhere in that stifling Empire of yours. Look at your fellow invaders, they turn against you.) Knives negligently gestured the drawn up armies outside Octovern, where for once the Terrans and No Man's Landers were not taking too obvious pot shots at each other.

"Who said I wanted to return?" Agone exclaimed incredulously, lapsing into spoken speech.

Knives gave a slow mean smile.

"The gold you took, the plants you harvested and the people you kidnapped. You have stolen from this world. You may arrive here, but know this, you will never leave."

"It is in the name of research; as if any of you dust, world hicks would understand that."

"You plundered _my_ biogenetics labs, perhaps I would." Knives drawled in the same derisive tone Agone used.

Agone frowned at him, then glanced at Vash who was still wrestling with the odd power Knives had given him. It was all he could do to remain upright and focussed on the situation.

"You're Alex Saverem?" Agone breathed incredulously.

Millions Knives scowled at him, no one, not even his brother called him that name to his face.

Vash grinned happily as Agone flicked his eyes at him for confirmation.

"Come with me!" Agone held out his hand with a firm expectation of Knives' acceptance.

Knives' derisive expression grew to revulsion.

"Why would I want to? Leave the plants, the people, and the worm larvae you have taken. Keep the gold if it comforts you. Then leave. If you never return, you will have your life. That should satisfy my brother's sensibilities."

Agone squinted at him with disdain.

"I can't leave without the plants." He pointed out, as if to a particularly stupid child.

Knives shrugged as if this were not his problem.

* * *

Livio moved with caution as he arrived at the crew quarters. He found Agone's room and opened the door. Inside was no usual berth, but instead a medical facility to rival the best that the Eye of Michael had to offer. Amidst all the technology lay the woman from his newly acquired memories. Domina. Her hair colour was all that matched, honey blond. Her face was gaunt, her eyes sunken, the skin on her hands, thin, showing the bones. Livio gazed at her, now uncertain. He knew bodily decay when he saw it. However, she was a plant. Knives had done some incredibly twisted rebirth process, and had survived with his own psyche intact. Was this what Agone was going to do here?

(Teres?)

Livio jumped at the voice that whispered through his mind. There was no one behind him, though he checked and locked the door.

(I'm tired. Teres. Let me go.)

Livio turned slowly then, horror making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He stepped forward so he could more clearly see. The plant Domina was aware. She now had her weirdly white eyes open, watching him. He flinched. Chronica had done that on occasion, and the power she channelled through her thoughts then was almost overwhelming.

(Not Teres.) She sounded deeply sorrowful. Livio flinched, she had loved Teres with a girlish crush, fully aware that her position in society denied any love between them. He grimaced. Why did he have to know that? He wished Plants would simply speak without all the overwrought emotional feedback.

(Chronica's lover.) Domina whispered in his mind. Livio gasped and staggered a step back as the vague memories of Chronica and her haughty and cold manner flashed through his mind. Then he came to himself as Domina settled on one of Chronica standing at one of the windows of a star ship staring out at the skies with tears in her eyes. Livio could not find breath at how beautiful and lonely she looked in that moment. Tears leaked down his face. He jerked another step back as Domina picked out a memory that was his own: Chronica, laughing while she smacked him with a pillow, after he had made an off colour joke on waking up beside her.

(Please. Let me go. It hurts to concentrate like this.)

Livio found himself with his back pressed against the door in fright. She had so easily overridden his mind. He had no protection against it. He also understood what she was asking. He shook his head.

"I can't." Chronica had loved her.

There was a long silence. Domina subsided, her eyes closing in exhaustion.

(Only I can navigate the warp.) The whisper came to her mind. (Agone doesn't have the training nor the mental discipline. He does not understand Plants are here to give. And when the time comes, they give their all, and die.)

Livio managed a jerky nod.

(I am only awake because of that machine.)

The machine covered most of the room. Though how much of it was life support and how much a plant drive he did not know.

(I have no control over my power. That machine orders my body to perform. You know well what it is to dance to another's will. Release me from my bondage and let me die.)

Livio hunched his shoulders and then relaxed them. He had intended to do this, but in cold blood. He walked over to Domina and placed his hand on her forehead. She smiled as he let her see the memories he had of the twins.

(Let her know they are free if you see her.) He whispered as he removed his hand.

Domina blinked once and her eyes were still.

(She already knows.) The voice was faint in his mind.

He heard a soft sigh across his thoughts and suddenly a cacophony of beeps and alarms set off. He stared down at Domina and lightly touched her forehead again. She had not needed his help. She had crossed into the afterlife on her own. He flinched and snatched his hand back as he felt the same eerie cascade of memory he had from Teres. He knew he had seconds before those monitoring Domina came to her side. He paused for a moment, letting out a long shuddering breath. She had stayed long enough to make sure Chronica was happy. Livio carefully placed her hands across her chest and slid her eyelids fully closed. She had not been angry at Chronica's death. Rather she had celebrated the joy that her friend had found in that short time. Livio slipped away through the ship. It took all of his skill to reach the upper access hatch unseen. He had not realised how deeply ashamed and guilty he had felt at Chronica's death. Not until someone had not only forgiven him but had delighted in the fact that he had been in her life. It was very hard then, to hate Teres. He had been fighting to keep Domina alive, as had Agone. Yet Domina had outmanoeuvred them both. Yet that was life: a war never won. One only lived to fight another day - or not.

He stole one of the emergency parachutes from beside the exit hatch and went to stand on the roof of the ship. Dawn broke, the sun glittering off his tears, the light catching the white flash of his smile.

* * *

Dawn light flooded over the city. Vash felt the change in tension as he lay on the dome surface. Agone was nothing on Knives in a pique; his brother would give no warning of his intentions. Knives blocked the blow with an easy grace, the power rippling like thunder across the dome and out over the skies of Octovern.

Vash shakily forced himself to sit. He drew his revolver then felt a cascade of icy shock clear his senses for a moment. Knives was surrounded by eerie white flames, seeming almost to disintegrate into feathers around him. He knew instinctively then that Knives had given him the last of his own power, and was now draining himself utterly. He reached forward to his brother, but it was too slow. Knives had already thrown himself at Agone, attacking him not with full strength, but calculated incursions, severing tendons, muscles and bone. There was an eerie keening as Agone braced himself and drew on the powers of the orb plants within his ship.

"You tried to kill my brother." Knives said in a flat menacing tone as he advanced on Agone. For once in her life, Meryl wanted to cheer Knives on. What was Vash up to, sitting there like that? Had the insects taken his mind? The panic was back and worse, nausea fought with sheer terror.

"Yes. I have tried to kill you also." Agone said in an urbane tone.

Knives approached like a lion hunting a gazelle, Agone moved skittishly from side to side.

"I've been told that for that and the murder of seven other plants, and the torture and maiming of six more, you have earned death. But sometimes death is too good."

Meryl glanced at Milly. What _had_ Calor said to him?

"Is that Knives speaking?" She asked Milly. It sounded like Knives, but the sentiment sounded like Vash. She was startled when her voice came out too soft. Milly frowned at her signing she could not hear. She gaped, Knives was projecting the conversation somehow, bypassing the ears of those watching. Or was it Vash, that would be something he would do, summoning witnesses.

"Or is it that you _can't_ kill me." Agone smiled sardonically. "A pity your brother survived. You two have been on my pest eradication list since before we landed here."

"Pest? Is that all we are?" Knives' voice grew flatter and more deadly.

"You certainly aren't my equals, first generation plants like you? I'm surprised you lasted so long. That oversight will be settled when the Earth Fleet returns. This planet has such wealth as to draw the treasure hunters of the empire. Make no mistake, you and those sand worms of yours are vermin."

"They will not find us unprepared." Knives promised. Then tilted his head as if he were weighing Agone up. Then moved the last two yarz so swiftly it was all Agone could do to block his punch.

"Vash." Knives said quietly.

As he spoke, the retort of a single gunshot sounded, but Meryl knew Vash well enough to know that he had fired two in rapid succession. Agone stood there as his angel arms disintegrated into his usual human ones. Meryl expected him to fall over dead, but he did not. He staggered backwards, but caught himself, his arms hanging limply at his sides.

Vash shot a single shot. It bored through his brothers defences, through Agone's defences and was consumed. The second shot took the cleared path and took out the remaining gate link in Agone's arm.

The keening died. The watching orb plants were shaken, panicky but silent. Agone gripped at Knives, kneed him in the gut and kicked him bodily away from him. Vash staggered out and caught his brother awkwardly. Agone drew his pistol, but Vash shot it out of his hand, almost without thinking. Knives had a strange rattling gasping breath.

(Idiot!) Knives's voice was so weak it was only because he held him that he heard him. (Leave me. Face your enemy.)

Vash tried to transfer energy back to Knives.

His brother's eyes shot open, and he glared in full icy fury.

(Must I _always_ look after you Vash?) Knives gasped and Vash winced as Knives jerkily flung out a hand and power crackled around them as Agone raised his gun. The half formed orb Knives released sliced the gun in half, then exploded, taking with it half Agone's arm. Agone screamed, gripping his arm and staggered backwards.

Vash gripped Knives who had slumped against him.

"H-hey! I would have dealt with him! Take the power and heal!" Vash blustered as Knives shuddered all over.

(Get away!) Knives blasted all sense from his mind. Vash found himself several yarz away before he could think; the command had been that strong.

The first wave of power knocked him off his feet as he turned. He struggled to his knees as Knives forced himself upright, his hair icy fire and his body almost consumed by feathers, sparks and raw crackling power. Vash cried out in anguish, he could see now what a last run was. A plant opening the gates to their maximum and burning through their physical forms. But it was more than that. He could feel the link he shared with Knives flare against his mind for an instant. There was intense pain curiously counterbalanced by all consuming ecstasy. He felt as if he were caught up and drawn back through the power, back to the source of it all. Shucking his mortal prison, to a purer form of power. Vash blacked out.

* * *

The First Leader of the Sandworms strode across the dome. He eyed the approach of a craft as he stared at the three bodies sprawled out on the dome surface. He then looked up at the hovering ship. He then turned and leaped down the dome, his presence no longer required. He whistled for his worm and landed on its head as it leaped skywards. With a flick of his hand, a swarm of insects poured out of the ship and followed him. That insurance no longer necessary.

* * *

Vash opened his eyes as he felt someone kick his shoulder.

"No time for sleeping, idiot!" Knives spat at him, and was just barely able to help him up. They stood clutching each other like drunkards both trying to move but being unable to. They then noticed Agone stir.

"You filthy natives…"

"Plant, don't confuse me with the humans." Knives growled. "You are a plant, whatever fancy designation you decide to claim. This is your sentence, _plant_ , to live what days are left to you without the ability to draw from the power that sustains us. Know this is my brother's mercy. Cross us again, and I will kill you – and I will make sure you live long enough to regret it."

Knives then looked out and noticed the crowd of engineers, the Federal army and the Earth Federation Peace Force and the ever present gawkers and opportunists that made up the common folk of No Man's Land.

"Repair this dome and protect these plants. Get your miserable city in order again. And if you hunt sandworms, be prepared to face the consequences." He swayed and Vash set his feet to stabilize him. "If you have any sense, you will eradicate this idiot." Knives didn't even bother to indicate Agone who was yelling at his guards. No one was listening; they were all mesmerized by Knives.

* * *

The worm leaped over the people and Meryl shrieked and dove out of the way, dragging Milly with her, even as her friend let off stun gun. They made no difference to the worm. The brothers scrambled down the dome to be caught by the sandworm half the way down. A less than intelligent Federal soldier tried firing a mortar at them; Vash simply shot it out of the sky, the gate pulse nullifying it.

The worm disconcertingly came to a halt right where they were standing. Knives hauled Vash off by the back of his coat and let him fall. Vash scrambled down the side of the worm and landed heavily on the ground below.

"Keep him away from the Sandworms!" Knives spat at them.

Meryl could only gape up at him.

"I said I would stay away!" Vash called as the worm dove, tunneling under the street taking Knives with it. He turned to Meryl and Milly as Abe tore down the street in a Terran van.

"Get in!" Abe called. "That trance will wear off as soon as Knives is out of range. Agone is seriously going to hunt Sandworms and us now! Vash, why didn't you kill him?"

They piled into the van, to discover Livio, Douglas and Jasmine there too. Vash didn't reply.

"He doesn't like killing people." Meryl reminded Abe.

"Mister Vash?"

Meryl looked up Milly called her attention to the sad way Vash stared at his boots.

"Agone had the same trance over his followers. It was what gave Knives the idea. Only it interferes with the hive mind, so Knives finds it very difficult to do, I had to project most of it. I don't think the humans are going to be very pleased to find they were controlled."

Livio gave a low whistle from where he sat beside the twins.

"He has no limiter." Abe breathed. "That is one of the things it regulates. They will imprison him for avoiding that, and sentence him for crimes against humanity. You do realize they will also hunt you and Knives even harder."

Vash shrugged and Meryl wrinkled her nose at him as he put his arm around her shoulders. He stank of worm, sweat, blood and dust. She leaned her head on his chest, only too relieved he was alive.

"This world is a big place." He murmured with a faint smile. "And it is our home."

 **THE END**

(… yet not quite…)


	59. Chapter 59: Epilogue 1

**CH 59 Epilogue 1**

Epilogue

 _An indulgent meander past the end._

 _Near Lost July:_

"Hey Meryl."

Meryl jumped at the quiet voice that spoke from the alley. She backtracked to stare at the tall plant who stood leaning against the wall in the shade. Calor had grown out her hair, and it now hung around her shoulders and midway down her back.

"Calor!" She exclaimed. "We thought Knives had, well… we couldn't find any evidence, and you never responded to the search." She fumbled to a halt as Calor smiled slightly.

"I hid, not much you can do if I hide from you. It would not have been good had you found me then."

"Where have you been?" Meryl asked but Calor shrugged lightly, her pale eyes going to the horizon.

"Here and there." She said enigmatically. "Much like you."

Meryl nodded.

"I heard you'd had a few kids." Calor said.

Meryl raised an eyebrow.

"Rumour." She lied. She did not trust Calor enough for that truth. Also, how had Calor tracked her down? What was Calor doing now, as she looked well kept and content.

"Just thought I'd say no hard feelings, and thank you for Fifth Moon. It's helped many more than you can possibly imagine."

"There never were any hard feelings." Meryl was pleased at how she could feel gracious now. She still did not want the woman anywhere near Vash.

Calor laughed knowing what a fib that was. Meryl scowled.

"I'll see you later. I just wanted to settle that between us."

"Later?" Meryl exclaimed, suddenly wary, surely she did not know where she lived?

"Whenever we meet again." Calor said easily as she pushed away from the wall. "This world is too small to keep us apart for long."

.

Meryl walked down the third street of the town, far enough from the main street for it to be relatively peaceful. They had stayed there for two months now, and with that conversation Meryl already had itchy feet. She unlocked the front door, and hurried indoors. Vash was not out back on the veranda. He had been, recently, as his hand fan, beer and newspaper were all abandoned under the hummock. She looked around then heard the roof creak and a stifled giggle. She rolled her eyes and continued across into the dusty back yard where there was an empty toma pen that had been converted into a wooden fort. She made a concerted effort at looking around and walked back to the veranda. She very carefully did not look on the roof, though the creaking more than gave them away. She pulled open the screen door and sighed theatrically.

"I suppose no one wants to help me eat the hot fresh doughnuts I just bought."

She took her time closing the door, and headed for the kitchen as she heard the front door click. She laughed as she found six plants digging into the doughnuts on the table. Livio's twins looked in their late teens. Jasmine sporting more rings in her ears than Abe even dared. She had acquired a facial tattoo, clearly mimicking her father, though understated. Douglas kept his hair short in a buzz cut and had a preference for an ancient Terran coat he kept patching. It had once been Johnston's. Meryl had asked him about it once. Wearing the skin of his enemy was not an explanation that sounded particularly sane, but coming from Livio's kid, she let it pass.

Her own three kids were blond with green eyes, and looked between the ages of twelve and five. Nicholas, the eldest was as contrary as she, and had taken charge of the packet. He had rationed the doughnuts out to the others. Jen, their only girl, was trying to take the bag, distracting Nicholas, while their youngest, Zed, successfully tore a hole in the bottom of the packet and stole the remainders out the end to give to his father. Vash was concentrating on collecting the doughnuts on his long fingers.

"You're going to have to reinforce the veranda roof if you're all going to sit up there." Meryl said as she entered the sunny kitchen.

"It can take another two hundred pounds before it collapses." Doug informed her.

"We're renting this place." She reminded them.

"Hey!" Nicholas yelled as he realised his siblings had ganged up against him. He then realised his father was in on it all and the argument suddenly went silent.

"What?" Vash said aloud, as much as he ignored the kids squabbles he kept certain house rules. No silent mind speech around their mother, was one. "You say I can eat them all? Wow, Nick that's generous."

"Daaaaaaddd." Nicholas wailed. "I said I was keeping them for mum!"

"Were not! There were a whole two more for each of us!" Jen exclaimed.

"Aunt Meryl must be on a diet then, if she only is getting one and we're to have three each." Doug said.

There was a click at the front door and everyone froze.

"Who forgot to lock?" Doug asked as Jasmine leaped lithely from her chair.

"They're plants!"

The room was clear in five seconds flat. Meryl found herself in the basement in her rocking chair as the trap door was locked above her. She pushed herself out of the chair shaking her head. Vash and his over protective methods. She had let him set up this safe room in this house, as she let him set up safe rooms in each house. It calmed him to think she would stay there. She walked over to the bookshelf shoved under the window and climbed out. By the creaking, the children were all on the roof again.

"Mum!" Jen hissed at her. Nicholas clapped a hand across her mouth and Jen bit him.

"It's okay." She smiled slightly.

"She bit me!" Nicholas hissed holding out a hand with a seven year olds tooth marks, missing front teeth and all.

Meryl ignored them and slipped inside. Jasmine and Doug were hovering behind Vash like bodyguards. The reason was immediately clear.

Millions Knives was standing on the other side of the sitting room, looking at the place with an expression of utter disdain.

"Ah, here she is." He said sarcastically to his brother. Vash took three long strides over to her and tucked her against him protectively.

"Meryl, this is my brother, Knives." Vash said with a death grip that promised to squeeze all life out of her shoulders before his brother could wreck any havoc. His voice was surprisingly steady for the terror she felt streaming off him. If she could feel it, everyone else could. She heard Zed sniffling to the others on the roof.

Meryl gave him a stare. She did not know what to say to a man that she would happily hand over to a firing squad if she knew that bullets would keep him dead. The number of nights she had had to coax Vash back into reality and out of his horrific nightmares.

Knives eyed the twins, it occurred to Meryl that he had wanted to dismiss them, but could not as young and strong as they were.

"You're Chronica's?" He asked, but it was more a confirmation of what he already knew.

"Actually, I'm Livio's." Jasmine said. "Know him? Thinks you're the biggest bastard on the planet. But then, on his good days, he kind of likes you for putting him in the way of our mother. So I suppose we do owe you our lives."

Knives' eyebrow twitched and he dismissed her, but not before Douglas gave him a steady calculating stare as if he had already worked out ten ways to disable him, and another four to eliminate his existence.

"Cheerful friends you have." Knives said, speaking to Vash as if only he existed. "I heard you had fathered several children of your own."

Vash grinned; his grip was beginning to hurt. Jasmine silently slipped out of the room into the kitchen. Meryl knew she was headed for the roof by the amount of creaking going on.

"I do. Though I think we can talk things over by the dunes. I've some cold beer and doughnuts."

Knives twisted his face into a grimace.

"I'd prefer chilled wine and canapé's." He said as Vash released Meryl. She understood his flapping hand to mean she was to retreat out of the house. But she could not. Not with Knives standing there glowering.

Vash had not taken three steps before Knives put out a hand to stop him.

"Wait." He snapped and stepped back into the entrance hall. He glanced around in a jittery manner, then put his head rapidly into the rooms on either side. It was almost comical to her to see how he went chalk white with what seemed like fright.

"Knives?" Vash asked.

There was a loud creak from the back of the house then a thunderous crack as the veranda roof fell in. Yells and shrieks and a loud wailing from Zed emptied the house. Meryl found herself the last one out, blinking in the settling dust. Out in the back yard, a few yarz from each other stood two groups of people. Jasmine held Jen, Vash was trying to calm Zed who had now found he was receiving attention to his cries and cried louder. Nicholas was showing Doug the bite Jen had given him.

Across the way stood Knives with his arms out as if to shield those behind him. Slightly to his right stood a tall man in a hooded robe. Directly behind him stood a tall woman with long black hair and she held a baby in a pouch on her chest. At her feet crowded two girls just older than Jes and Nicholas, and trying to get around Knives to see what was going on was a boy who looked almost thirteen.

Meryl stared; there was absolutely no mistaking whose kids they were. The boy had the same expression as his father, except frightened where Knives managed arrogance. She caught Calor's eye and the plant gave her a slight wink before she reached out and briefly touched Knives' shoulder. He dropped his arms. Meryl found her eyes flicking back to the robed man. It was the First Leader of the Sandworms, clearly bodyguard to Knives and his small family.

"Dad." Jen stared at Knives. "Who is he?"

"Hah!" The boy hiding behind Knives recovered from his fright. "I told you I could find them Father. So now you do have to let Mother train me! Or I'm running away to the December Academy when I turn three."

Doug gave a laugh.

"My dad will just chuck you out and send you off to Vash, like he did us when we got too wild."

The boy stared at him.

"Who're you?"

"Douglas. Livio, who runs the December Academy, is my dad."

"Dad!" Jen insisted. "Who are they?"

Vash who had finally managed to quiet Zed, reached out and petted her head.

"This is my brother, your uncle, Millions Knives."

"Knives is _your_ brother!" Nicholas said, his voice rising from incredulity into devoted admiration. "Aw, come on dad, why did you never say! He's like the most famous most powerful plant ever."

Knives pinned Nicholas with a long stare and the youngster fell silent.

"Actually, that accolade belongs to your father." Knives said coolly. "Pack and head for the dunes. The neighbours have worked out who we are, and unless you want to have a several decade discussion with the Feds over numerous issues they think it pressing to bring to our attention, we should do so with alacrity."

Vash glanced around and found several neighbours hanging around staring for all they were worth.

"I never knew we had cousins." Jen said, eyeing the children.

"I never wanted girl cousins." The boy behind Knives stated and his eldest sister hit him.

Jen marched across and piled into the fight as Nicholas flew in to defend his sister, and their cousins all suddenly united and defended their front. Vash handed Zed to Jasmine and waded into the fight, picking up his own children.

"Meryl, we're leaving!" He called. "Doug, Jaz, help! Knives, the Feds are coming! Get your worms into the deep desert. Someone called the Terrans."

"How the hell do you know that?" Knives asked, as Calor darted her hand in and snagged her eldest girl. The other two tagged along after her, bemoaning their fate.

Vash just winked at him and pushed his kids towards the broken back door of the house. He turned to the gawping neighbours.

"Mrs Ellington!" He called and walked over to the elderly grandmother who lived in the house next door. She was leaning on the low fence gawping with the rest. He dug out his wallet and rapidly counted out double dollar bills. "Give this to Cranksworth when he asks for the rent and repair money. Tell him, Smith says sorry."

Mrs Ellington took the money, with a practiced movement, folded it, and tucked it into her bra.

"I'll tell him Vash the Stampede says sorry. I ain't lying for you, sonny. Now git." She smiled at him.

.

"Can we do it now Father?"

"No." Knives said to his eldest son as they walked out of the town.

Meryl was so proud of her children. They knew the drill, and had gathered their things and were ready to leave in under two minutes. Jasmine and Doug had helped with the younger two, but it had been done. Vash had decided to be blatant about it this time and pulled on his red duster. Any neighbours who had held any doubts as to his identity no longer did so. Sensing the tension, Meryl had pulled her derringer-lined cape over her clothes. Jasmine carried an enormous stun gun over her shoulder and Douglas had guns ZT had made him from his own designs. They were suited to plant use, and had several peculiar attributes that Vash had yet to eke out of him. Meryl was sure whatever they were they would be dramatic. Douglas liked to make a point only once.

Knives had stared at their weaponry as they had tumbled out of the house one after the other.

"You're all plants!" He exclaimed, then rolled his eyes at his brother. "I suppose you get the bad habits off him."

Vash reached into his bag and pulled out a black revolver, twin to his own silver one. Knives stared at it as though it were a snake. Vash held it out.

"You must have lost it; I got it off a Terran pretending to be you. I had Marlon tune it, it's in excellent condition."

A hand darted out and snatched the stock. Meryl did not see Knives move, but the next instant he had his hand over his son's smaller one, holding the gun.

"This is mine, Alexander." He said coolly. "Until I teach you the proper use of it, you will not touch it."

Far from damping his son's enthusiasm, he only stoked it. Alexander pulled his hand away and gave a howl of delight. Knives glanced at Vash then turned his scowl away.

"I've an extra holster for it." Vash said digging in his bag as he walked. He pulled out a belt and a holster that strapped to the leg, much like his own.

Knives put it on too rapidly and easily to never have not worn one before. He adjusted his coat around it and with a few swift movements holstered and drew the gun to check for free movement. Alexander and his cousin Nicholas were watching with avid attention. Meryl smiled privately to herself as she watched them mimic his movements with their hands. Knives checked it was loaded then took the speed loader Vash handed him.

"Expecting trouble?"

Meryl glanced at Calor who was watching the exchange with a strange look on her face. How could she explain to the Terran plant that the exchange was man speak for 'right now I am your friend, and am willing to hear what you have to say.'

"Always." She said succinctly.

"Last time Dad wore his red fighting coat he shot a hole in a sand steamer." Zed said. "We all got free icecream."

Meryl turned away so as not to laugh at Calor's expression at how the story had been edited to its most pertinent points.

"Told you." Alexander said to his father and Knives raised an eyebrow. Alexander cleared his throat. "Sorry. You will see I was correct in my statement, Father."

"Conceded. You gain the point." Knives stated.

Alexander grinned fiercely.

"We're ten yarz passed the threshold!" Alexander declared. "Can we do it now?"

"Not in this town, Alexander." Knives said quietly.

Alexander faltered and stared up at his father bewildered. Meryl was intrigued that the boy even curled his hand around his father's own, his blue eyes wide. Knives sighed and came to a halt.

"Vash. How long till the Feds arrive?"

"I can see the dust cloud. We should run."

"We'll come back tonight." Knives promised, then turned to his family. "Each of you, take one person. Vash, Douglas, you ride with me. Meryl carry Zed."

"Wha?" Vash began as suddenly three sand worms appeared out of the sand just beyond the road. The Leader of the Sandworms was already running.

Vash couldn't decide which was worse. Riding a tomas or riding a sandworm with Knives. His brother kept hitting him and telling him to hold onto nothing as if that was supposed to secure his legs.

They came to a mesa in the desert and the sandworms left them at the base of the cliff. They left, taking the Leader of the Sandworms with them.

"That was so cool!" Nicholas exclaimed. "Do you get to do that every day?" He stared up at Knives enviously.

Knives gazed down at him.

"Only when necessary." He glanced to the left as if he could see through the Mesa. "This is our camp for the night."

They followed him for several yarz until they came around a natural hollow of about three hundred yarz. To one side was pitched a low sand tent. However, it was the most opulent sand tent Meryl had ever seen. It was a hundred yarz long and made up of several sections. Alexander and his sisters headed towards it without a second glance, waving their cousins after them. But Douglas caught Nicholas' shoulder and Jasmine easily lifted Jen up onto her hip. There was a very uneasy tension as they gathered in a tight group behind Vash.

"Thank you." Vash said with a smile. "But we like the stars over our heads. We'll sleep up there tonight." He jerked his thumb at the Mesa top. "See you in the morning."

"Aw, Dad!" Nicholas whined as they turned away. "I wanted to sleep in the tent."

"Nick." Meryl murmured and Nicholas scowled. She knew from experience that he was silently nagging his father. Sometimes Vash relented; she knew he would not tonight.

.

Their camp on the Mesa was a rather good one, Meryl thought. Between Vash and Douglas, they had dragged boulders around a hollow, and it was both sheltered and defensible. It offered a good view of the distant town, and they would have ample warning should anyone try approach or climb the Mesa. Nicholas sulked. They had supper, the usual first night after leaving fare of leftover perishables and foods that could not be easily carried. Tonight that resulted in thick stew and salad.

Meryl put the children to bed and left Vash to tell them the next part of an adventure story that was more fiction than truth, but enough of a mix to make it very real. He returned to the fire half an hour later and they sat there in silence as the sky became truly dark.

"Where to next?" Douglas asked to break the silence.

"I was thinking September." Meryl said. "I want to see Milly."

"And Abe." Doug said with a grin. "I bet I'm quick enough on my draw now to beat him this time."

Abe and Douglas had an ongoing rivalry, Vash was a little hurt that neither ever challenged him.

"Do you think he'll let us?" Jasmine asked quietly.

There was silence again.

Vash leaned back and stretched his neck as he stared up at the stars, not really seeing them.

"Oh man, I'm going to have to say something to him." He sounded absolutely miserable.

"Jaz and I could explain matters." Doug said with a soft tone that threatened a great deal.

Vash snapped his head up with a flat look of panic.

"No. He's my brother." He said stubbornly.

Doug stared at Vash.

"Is he really so bad? Dad said he was bad news, but you know how Dad exaggerates. One tiny shoot out in a tavern becomes a town wide gunfight."

"Douglas, Jasmine." Meryl said quietly. "What Teres did is not a patch on what Knives has done. I want you both to promise us that you will allow Vash to handle this and not interfere."

The two plants stared at Meryl.

"We've heard rumours. No one actually knows much." Jasmine said intrigued.

"Be thankful that you know that much." Meryl cautioned them. "Now I think we'd best set a watch. I'll take first, Vash can have graveyard…"

"I'll take the full watch." Vash said quietly. "I need to think."

There was another drawn out silence as Jasmine and Doug shared a glance then turned to Meryl, as if assessing Vash's reaction in relation to how dangerous Knives was.

"Ow, leggo! C'mon, he's gonna hear us! Ow!" They all turned as Knives came up the path with Nicholas' collar clenched in his fist. He released the boy as soon as they stood on the Mesa.

"Nicholas." Meryl said very quietly and grimly. Nicholas winced and skipped across to his bed so fast the blanket scarcely moved before he was buried under it.

Knives gazed at them; both Douglas and Jasmine were on their feet. Vash still sat by the fire, watching his brother.

"Thank you." Vash said in a pleasant tone.

Knives turned away, his eye snagged on the rising moons and he paused for a long moment before retreating down the Mesa.

"You're going to have to tell Nick something." Meryl said quietly. "Or he'll act up something terrible."

Vash stared down at his hands. Meryl felt her heart lurch to see a silvery tear run down his face. Douglas and Jasmine took that as their cue to head for bed.

"Dad?" A small worried voice came from behind them. Meryl looked up from where she had her arm around Vash to see Nicholas with the blanket wrapped around him. "I'm sorry. I just wanted to see the tent. I'm here now. Don't cry." He was on the edge of crying himself.

Meryl felt her heart go out to him. The boy could feel the tension and did not know how to handle it. Vash wiped his face and held out his hand. Nicholas inched across and gave a surprised 'oof' as Vash grabbed him and gave him a bear hug.

Meryl petted his head and gave Vash a pat on the shoulder as she stood up.

"Stay." Vash murmured. He released Nicholas from the hug but the boy still huddled close to him. Meryl returned to her seat beside them.

"Nick. Uncle Knives is not like Abe, or Mutare. He's more like those scary men in black that Livio says you aren't to go anywhere near."

"He doesn't feel like them." Nicholas fidgeted. "Did you fight with him, Dad? I always hate Jen after we fight. Maybe you need to say sorry."

"Nick." Meryl said firmly. "No acting." All of their kids were proficient at acting their apparent ages.

Nicholas sighed and pouted.

"He's a bit distant and he got a huge fright seeing me sneaking into the tent. He grabbed me before I even knew what had hit me and dragged me all the way up here saying he didn't want trouble with you when you wore your red coat. Even he knows stories about your red coat. Are you ever going to tell us why there was that poster for the sixty billion double dollars?"

Nicholas eyed his father too sharply.

"Okay. I will." Vash said quietly. "Knives and I had a fight, and it levelled an entire city."

"Lost July." Nicholas' eyes glowed. "I knew it!"

Meryl gazed at him.

"Do tell." She said in a level tone. Nicholas winced.

"C'mon Mum!" Nicholas whined. "No one tells me anything. And then when I ask the other kids they tell all these super crazy awesome stories about you and I just have to sit there with my mouth shut and make sure Jen doesn't realise it is you and Dad they're talking about."

Meryl sighed. She would have to talk to Jen, she was almost certain she did know.

"Dad." Nicholas said, suddenly thoughtful. "They said you fought a plant so strong that you threw the whole planet into war. Dad, is that Millions Knives in the story, Uncle Knives?"

"Yes."

"Dad." Nicholas sounded curiously wistful. "They said you flew off into the sunset. Can we really fly?"

Vash smiled slightly.

"Yes. But remember what I said about power?"

"We have to be very careful in using it as it is linked to our life force. So it takes a great deal of power?"

Vash gave a tight grin, hiding more sorrow than he dared show in front of his son.

"Dad." Nicholas said very quietly. "Is Uncle Knives still the bad guy?"

Vash shrugged.

"I don't know." He said softly. "Sorry."

Nicholas wrapped his arms around his father and gave him a hug. Vash buried his face in his son's hair.

"I won't run off again." He murmured. He then sat back and looked thoughtfully out at the night. "Dad, you know, our cousins also act."

"I know." Vash said with a smile. "It's good practice, but among plants, you may be yourselves."

Nicholas breathed out a sigh of relief.

"Dad, can you teach me to handle your silver revolver, I'm not having snotty cousin Alexander beat me any day."

Vash sighed.

"He'll beat you at the beginning, but you will beat him in time. Practice is what makes you good."

Nicholas bit his lip thoughtfully.

"Dad, is Uncle Knives better than you at shooting?"

Vash smiled.

"He only wishes he was."

"Nick, it's not how you shoot, it's why." Meryl said softly. "And until you let us see that you understand that, you're not allowed a gun unless your father is around helping you with it."

"I can get my own gun?" Nicholas exclaimed.

"I wanted another life for my children." Vash murmured, not really speaking to anyone. "One without the endless suffering and pain and wading through dallons of blood."

"Mum, Dad is getting graphic again." Nicholas said a little nervously.

"He's not being graphic enough." Meryl said succinctly. "Nick, understand this. This is no longer a game. The moment your father lets you touch that gun, you are responsible for every life you may take, and every life you may lose by inaction. You asked once why your father has nightmares where he wakes screaming. This is the beginning of the journey. And your damned Uncle Knives is perhaps the whole and entire cause of it. And I am furious and I am going to bed. Vash, tell him the whole story."

She stormed off and pulled their blanket out of Vash's pack.

"Dad?" Nicholas said quietly. "Are you and Mum having a fight?"

"No. She's just scared, but not as scared as I am of loosing every one of you. Nick, I'm not telling you the whole story, but I will tell you this. You were named for…"

"A brave warrior priest named Nicholas D. Wolfwood who has a grave at the orphanage and I get ragged each time I go there 'cause you have me a stupid name."

"Nick!" Meryl snapped. She was getting tired of this. It was about time Nicholas heard the story.

Vash sat blinking at the ground.

"He was my best friend." He said huskily. "He could draw faster than Livio, and was my fighting partner in the bad old days. He had my back and I had his."

Nicholas stared at him, spellbound. His father had never told him any of the true stories. Not even in the made up tales he told them at night.

"We tangled ourselves in the wars of the underworld. He even sided with me when I fought your Uncle Knives, even though it turned out that Knives was paying him to hunt me. When Knives realised he had turned, he sent people to that orphanage. Wolfwood left the fight against Knives and went to defend his home. I arrived too late to save him, but in time to save the orphanage. I buried my best friend there and went on to confront my brother." He fell silent.

"Did you win?" Nicholas said, awed.

"No. Neither of us won." Vash said. "But we both lived, and had a second chance to try make a better start at life than our first. Perhaps your Uncle Knives has changed, perhaps he has not."

"If not, we're as good as dead." Nicholas whispered as horror entered his eyes.

Vash reached out and gripped his hand.

"No. I stopped him the last time, and I'll stop him again."

Nicholas clenched his hands together.

"It isn't a proper story Dad. It doesn't have a good ending."

"Life isn't much like stories." Vash murmured. "But you know what your mum says. If the ending isn't good, it isn't the end."

* * *

 _Half way to September_

Meryl found herself sitting in the café with Calor. The plant breathed out a long sigh.

"You have no idea what a pleasure it is, half an hour without constantly worrying about the children."

Meryl nodded, until two months ago, that had been her.

"So. You and Knives? I was under the impression Knives had no interest in females, let alone sex."

Calor snorted.

"Oh he's interested all right. It's getting him to leave me alone that's the trick."

Meryl looked out at the dusty street. A little too much information there, then again, Vash was the same in his more needy moments.

"Sorry we couldn't help you. We did look."

They had hunted for an entire year, and had split up Fifth Moon to do so. There had been no word or hint she still lived. Then something occurred to Meryl.

"Your eldest…"

"Is nearly three." Calor grinned. "Conceived the day I helped Milly escape."

Meryl stared. Way too much information.

"Er…"

Calor laughed.

"Isn't that why you invited me here? To find out how I found Knives? Or rather why?"

Meryl could not voice how that was true, yet without the graphic hints and details.

Calor shrugged and placed her hands around her cup of tea.

"He saved my life." She said succinctly. "I went to see him to free Milly. He was already obsessed with me for some reason. I think he was irked that I could block his attacks and was infuriated that I ignored him. I wanted to use him to go after Teres. I didn't plan to live once Teres was dead, in fact I was hoping to take him out in my final death surge. Only somehow Knives got in the way." She sighed. "You know, those brothers, with them stupid sticking out ears." She murmured quietly with a slight teasing lilt to her voice. "They have some very fine anatomy. The first sight I got of Knives the day I freed Milly was his arse. The guy had been lazing in his bath and was busy drying himself when I let myself into his apartments. I modified my plans, as I decided I had to have some of that."

Calor paused as Meryl rearranged her features out of incredulity to something more like a friend listening to seedy gossip.

"It was interesting." Calor said, smiling genuinely for the first time. "I always expected him to be just another of this dust world's hicks who just took what was offered. In his way, he did, but he has a refinement I have only seen played out in old movies. He offered me good wine, and we spent time talking. He has a peculiar philosophy, but he wanted to share it. Now you must know I am comparing him with Teres who just took if the mood required it. But I never imagined from all this worlds horror stories of the man, to encounter his elegant behaviour."

"He kills without thought." Meryl murmured. "And seeks to dominate the will of others."

"I know." Calor said calmly. "I know how to get around the worst of it. It works out, somehow."

"Calor?" Meryl asked softly. "Are you fine with this?"

Calor smiled sadly at her.

"There are still days I want to die. He can sense them somehow. I think he is determined to keep me around."

"You don't love him?"

Calor gave a harsh laugh.

"No. I have never loved anyone. I respect him, and for that, I will do anything, including living each day to look after his children."

Meryl smiled. She understood that. This world broke people in different ways, and Knives and Calor had to find their own way through their brokenness. Just as she and Vash had theirs.

.

Vash followed Nicholas across the town. His son was good, but did not quite have the finesse to be able to avoid him. Certainly not at night with four of the five moons glowing in the heavens. He stopped by the graveyard wall which included several tall rocky outcrops. There he could see two other figures with flashlights. The younger one waved as Nicholas ran up.

"So what ya doin'?"

"What are you doing?" Knives corrected.

Nicholas stared at him.

"Huh?"

"We're not to speak like the locals when we're among family." Alexander explained.

"Wha? Dad speaks like that all the time." Nicholas trailed off. "Er. What are you doing?"

"We are planting seeds. This area would make a good place for Eucalyptus trees. The villagers would be able to use the wood."

With a little more explanation as to how to plant they spent half the night digging and planting across an area of a hundred yarz. Vash watched Knives send the boys ahead, planting and digging as he slowly came after them, calling each tree out to at least three years growth before going on to the next. He smiled.

"Father, we have planted all the seeds." Alexander reported.

"Then return to your beds. Make sure not to disturb your mothers."

"Yes sir!" Nicholas said and they ran off.

Neither boy noticed Vash standing in the lee of the boulder as they sped past.

Vash walked back at a more sedate pace. Nicholas was tucked up in bed when he put his head into the room to check. He had forgotten to wash. Vash smiled and went on to his own room. Meryl, as she did whenever she woke and found him gone, had curled up onto his side of the bed and had hugged his pillow. He removed his clothing and found that Meryl had also hidden his pyjamas. He winced slightly. She was angry. Fine, if she wanted a naked man in her bed, she was getting one. He didn't bother to slip in quietly. He simply lifted the blanket, let all the cold air in and tried to curl around her. Wrong move. She woke hissing imprecations and scolding like a fishwife. While she was so energetically employed, Vash stole his pillow back and found the toasty hot water bottle with his feet. Now comfortable he gathered her into his arms. She went all stiff and glared. He pouted at her and touched the frown lines on her forehead.

"I went for a walk." He murmured.

"And Nicholas?" She hissed.

"I was watching him."

"What was so pressing at one in the morning?" She demanded.

"Knives and Alexander were planting trees."

"At night!" Meryl exclaimed.

Vash shrugged.

Meryl let out a long huffy breath, then wriggled up to cuddle beside him in quite a marvellous way.

"You know your brother is weirder than you are."

"Mmh." He had several objections to that statement, but experience had taught him that now was not the time to air them. She wriggled again, this time, pulling at the collar of her pyjamas as the shirt slipped down her shoulder. Ah, so that is where his had vanished.

"Vash, how can you wear this?"

"I can show you." He said helpfully.

.

Vash opened one eye leisurely to find Meryl buried under the blankets on her side of the bed. It was four thirty in the morning. He slipped out and pulled on his exercise sweats before sneaking out of the room. He put his head in at Nicholas' room. The boy was deeply asleep. This was going to be interesting.

(Nicholas!)

(Mmme, Da, shuddup, sleeping, leeme'lone…)

(I suppose you don't want me to teach you how to use a revolver…)

The speed at which his son was up and out of bed and standing beside him was phenomenal. Vash almost laughed at how tousle haired and dirty he was. His face fell as he took in the sweats Vash wore.

(Aw, dad you said shooting practice, not exercise…)

(Being fit is part of it all. We'll take a run out to the Eucalyptus grove and back again, to wake up.)

(How d'ya know about that?) Nicholas asked awed.

Vash smiled and began to walk down the passage.

(Wait! I have to find my shoes!)


	60. Chapter 60: Epilogue 2

_**CH 60: Epilogue 2**_

 _Near September_

Nicholas was very glad to be off the steamer. Being stuck in the cabin with his younger sister and even younger brother was fine, but not when it was a whole week. He fretted about target practice, Alexander was sure to be iles ahead of him. They jostled through the sea of people and traders and wove their way through the markets surrounding the steamer. They came to the edge of the market and Nicholas was surprised when his father waved at a woman seated on the roof of a heavily modified truck. Nicholas stared; though no weapons were visible, he could see the gun housings and the platform where a turret and cannon could be mounted.

"Are we travelling in that?" He asked his mother, awed.

"Yep, that's Lina's truck." Meryl smiled.

"Ha! Look at that, three kids, and still a grin on his face!" The woman called down from atop the truck. "Have you got all your luggage?" She asked, eyeing the single bag they each carried.

"Yes." Vash said.

"You haven't changed." She shook her head. "Doors open, get in." She turned and let herself back into the cab by the hatch.

Nicholas explored the truck, fascinated. There was even a periscope, though now strapped to a wall while not in use. The machine guns were in their housings, though not loaded.

"Don't touch." Lina said and Nicholas pulled his hand back with a sunnily innocent grin, which he knew worked on strangers. To his astonishment, Lina straightened and raised an eyebrow.

"That doesn't work on me kid, I know your father, remember?"

Nicholas looked for Vash to find him sitting in the passenger seat up front, as the truck roared into life. He went forward to sit with him to avoid all the sharp-eyed ladies in the back. Lina was pricklier than his mother. He was impressed to find a young man driving the truck. He could sense he was a plant, that and the fact his father was speaking mind to mind.

(… and it looks like you're doing well.)

The young man grinned.

(We live on our own plot on the farm; my Step-dad wanted a plot right on top of the Geoplant, so that I'd have some company. But that's the most fertile land, so we got the nearest plot to it. I tried explaining to Zachery that you can't exactly speak to geoplants, they're so focussed they can't process any other interaction than the care of the vegetation. But you know humans when they get an idea in their head…) He shrugged.

Nicholas leaned over and stared at the young man.

(You're a plant!) He said, awed.

(My eldest, Nicholas.) Vash drew him over to sit beside before he entangled himself with the gear stick.

(I'm Mick, Lina is my mum. I'm assuming Meryl is your mum.)

(Yeah.) Nicholas said as if that was obvious.

(Oh man, I never mentioned I married her, did I?) Vash panicked.

Mick laughed.

(Mum was pissed you never sent her an invite. You'll have to make it up to her. Dad understood and explained it to me when I was older.) Mick gave Vash a rather knowing smile.

Vash had a cheesy grin on his face.

(H-how did you know to meet us with the truck?)

(Didn't, only it's you, we thought we might have to fight our way out.)

(I've never seen a geoplant.) Nicholas said, interrupting Vash's appalled stare.

(You'll see one today, then.) Mick grinned.

.

Nicholas was delighted when they drove up to the farmhouse. There were other buildings half an ile away, that Mick said was the main farmhouse, but this two-story building was impressive enough. However, what delighted him most was the shooting range a hundred yarz from the house. By the look of things, he would have one up on his cousin by the next time they met. A tall man with light brown hair stood waiting in the yard outside the house.

"Hey, look, dad's home!" Mick called.

"What's he doing back now?" Lina exclaimed. "He said he'd only be home for dinner."

Mick parked the truck in the shade under the tree, and clambered out.

"Hey Zachery!"

"Mick!" Zachery nodded at him, his face oddly grim. He walked briskly around the truck. "Ah. Vash, a word with you."

They all stared at the two men as they walked further under the tree to talk.

Vash turned and glanced at the house then grinned sheepishly and scratched the back of his head.

"He's _with_ you?" Zachery exploded. "What the hell happened?"

Vash shrugged.

Zachery stood with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched.

"I want my house standing by the end of the week." Zachery said. "He can lodge with me, you and your family can lodge with Mills, she and Meryl will love that."

Vash grinned.

"Excellent."

"Knives beat us here?" Meryl asked, leaning out of the truck.

"What?" Lina exclaimed in panic. "Millions Knives? Is he in the house?"

"Well yeah, he showed up half an hour ago." Zachery said carefully. "It's okay, he's my boss, just treat him like the bosses from the Eye of Michael, and it'll be fine."

"No it won't! I left all the laundry in the living room, and the dishes all undone!" Lina leaped down and sprinted for the house.

Zachery's mouth dropped open.

"Did you clear the washing away before you showed him into the living room?" Mick laughed.

"No, what for?" Zachery frowned. "Knives came to talk weapons…"

"Mum's going to be so mad." Mick laughed even harder.

"Zachery." Vash said quietly. "Go with Lina." He turned to his family. "I'll wait here, while you all settle at Milly's place."

"No! Go with them, I'm not having you two fighting!" Zachery snapped and glared at Vash.

Douglas climbed down and dodged Vash who was trying to wave them all back on the truck.

"I'll join you later; I need to speak to Zachery."

.

Nicholas could not believe his bad luck, being driven away from the house with the shooting range, while it was clear that his cousin Alexander was going to reside either there or nearby. He sulked as he climbed out, but it was rather hard to keep up the sulk when he saw the new house. It was a single story, large and sprawling, but it had the most enormous tree growing out the middle of it. And someone had built a treehouse in the tree.

"Well look ye here!" A tall man with dark hair walked out of the house, but that was as far as he got. A shriek of delight split the air and a tall woman sprinted past him and was met by Meryl who threw her arms around her with delight.

Nicholas stared, this was Milly, she had visited them a year and a half ago. She was his mum's best friend. He looked at the man, surprised. He was also a plant. Nicholas glanced back at Mick, puzzled.

(He's not my dad.) Mick said, understanding the glance. (My dad died before I was born. He's Aunt Milly's husband.)

The round of introductions left Nicholas trying to remember names. Milly and Abe had three children, the eldest looked Alexander's age. To Nicholas' disappointment, they were all girls. They eyed him curiously, dismissed Mick with smiles and crowded around Jen and Zed. Nicholas eyed the treehouse as everyone stood talking.

"Want to go up?" Mick asked.

"Yeah!"

"Captain!" Mick yelled over the hubbub the adults were making. "Permission to board ship!"

"Granted!" The eldest girl, Melissa, yelled back. There was a scramble for the door and Nicholas found himself having to run to keep up with Melissa and Mick. The base of the tree was in a conservatory with a glass roof. All around it grew the most beautiful soft grass.

"Gotta take your shoes off!" Mick instructed him.

They walked barefoot over to the tree and the girls scrambled up, the ladder propped against the tree, Melissa helping Zed. Even Jasmine followed them up. Nicholas walked through the first room, awed. It was a fully operational satellite receiving and transmission station.

"That's dad's stuff." Melissa warned him as he peered at it. "Don't touch."

"I wouldn't." Mick said in a conspirators whisper. "Uncle Abe built this stuff out of rare Terran technology. He'll have it out of your hide if you break it."

"Dad showed me how to build this stuff." Nicholas said, his eyes keenly searching for what information Abe was gathering. However, all he could see was that it received and transmitted radio signals.

"Are my first mate and cabin boy lagging behind?" Melissa put her head down the trap door in the ceiling.

"You're the cabin boy!" Mick laughed and scrambled up the ladder.

"What?" Nicholas exploded. "Zed's the youngest, he's the cabin boy!"

"No, he's not crew, he's passenger. You're lucky to be counted as crew." Mick pulled him up onto the deck. It was situated among the upper branches of the tree. It was just an open platform built around a tall crate.

"Welcome aboard the 'Walrus'!"

Nicholas watched as they hurried about, raising not rigging and sails, as he expected from something that named itself after a pirate ship, but what looked like flak shields and something that looked like a catapult from hatches in the deck. He went over to help.

"This is our target launcher." Mick explained as he slid the dead bolts in to lock it into place.

"Target launcher?" Nicholas asked, bewildered, then clapped his hands over his ears as Melissa's sister Camilla stamped on a button on the floor and a very loud siren went off.

"That's the warning!" Melissa explained at Nicholas' puzzled stare. "Mum had us put it in so people would know we're launching targets."

"Aveline, are we clear?"

The youngest girl peered seriously over the edge of the platform.

"All clear!"

Camilla stamped on the siren button twice briefly.

"First Mate, fire the first target!"

Nicholas stepped back rapidly as Mick reached into the crate and loaded the catapult with a large battered oil barrel with holes in it. He released the catapult and the barrel went flying. He jumped as two gun shots sounded behind him. Camilla and Melissa were firing at the target before it even hit the ground.

"Aw, missed." Camilla tucked her rifle butt under her arm as she cracked the barrel open and reloaded.

Nicholas stared in devoted admiration. Alexander could keep his shooting range. This was the sort of dream he never knew he was able to dream, somehow miraculously come true.

They let him have a pair of revolvers, he was not going to admit not knowing how to load and fire a rifle after their expertise at it. The rubber bullets were another new thing; his dad only had live ammunition for practice. They spent the afternoon launching various items into the air. Nicholas hit more than Camilla, but not nearly as many as Melissa, who seemed to have an uncanny knack at reading trajectory. Mick seemed to be content to launch targets rather than shoot. Aveline showed Jen how to use an air rifle. Jasmine had her hands full with keeping Zed out of the ammunition and kept him away from the guns.

A whistle sounded as the first sun set.

"Aww," Camilla whined. "That's the supper call."

"We're not allowed shooting targets after first sunset anyway." Melissa said. "Mick, don't you have to get home?"

"Aye, Captain! See ya, Nicholas."

As if in farewell Aveline stamped once on the siren.

They trooped down, but instead of heading into the kitchen for supper, Camilla and Melissa sprinted for the back door. Nicholas followed, carrying his shoes and sat on the back veranda putting them on as the two girls drove a tractor around the yard where they had been launching targets, collecting them once more. They put them into a crate beside the veranda, then drove the tractor back into the barn.

Nicholas tied his laces off and grinned as his father came to sit himself beside him.

"Dad! Did you _see_ that?" He breathed in awe.

Vash grinned at him.

"Yeah, I did. I saw you hit some of those targets too."

Nicholas beamed.

.

The next day at the formal shooting range, Nicholas tried to remember quite why he had been so happy. Alexander had, over the last hour, outdrawn and out shot him. He was glad his father was not there that afternoon. However, Knives watched them, as he always did. Though this time, he was seated on the veranda of Zachery's house with a glass of chilled wine. Zachery and Douglas were seated at the same table, discussing weapons manufacture.

Nicholas reloaded his gun and tried to concentrate on grouping his bullets, what was the point of a quick draw if he missed the target half the time.

Cousin Alexander drew, shot and holstered. Nicholas rolled his eyes at him as Alexander gave him a smarmy stare of superiority. He had hit his target.

"Hah! You call that a quick draw?"

They turned as Mick walked up, a revolver on his hip.

"Oh yeah?" Alexander exclaimed cockily. "And you can do any better?"

"Sure." Mick paused for effect, then drew, shot from the hip to put his bullet dead centre through the target's chest and re-holstered his gun in one smooth movement.

Alexander stared.

Nicholas laughed.

"We should have been competing against him!"

"How do you do that?" Alexander asked, awed.

"Practice?" Mick said with a shrug. "My Step-father's a stickler for practice."

"What's with all the practice?" Nicholas whined. "Dad's like that too."

"What are you whining about?" Mick exclaimed. "Have you any idea what your Dad did with all that practice of his?"

Nicholas perked up.

"You know?"

Mick frowned.

"Don't you? He's your Dad."

Both Nicholas and Alexander groaned.

"No one tells us anything interesting."

Mick grinned broadly.

"Interesting is just the start of it. There's guts and gore and nudity…"

.

Meryl served up her best stew that evening. Fortunately, Zachery's house had a large living room as everyone was there that night. Zachery, Douglas and Knives had settled on the far end of the table and were still talking weapons and possible improvements. Calor and Lina had their kids spread out around them. Vash and Abe were laughing at each other's misfortunes and Milly stood at the sideboard laying out the pudding bowls for all of them while Jasmine filled them. There was a lull in the conversation as everyone tucked in.

"Dad!" Nicholas' voice carried loudly over the slurping of stew. "Did you really strip buck naked and bark like a dog?"

Vash was left with his mouth hanging open, his fork forgotten half way to his mouth. Lina snapped her mouth shut and glared at her eldest son. Mick avoided her gaze.

Zachery cleared his throat, and Milly grinned, both clearly knew the tale. Meryl was fascinated, how did Milly know, and not her?

"Do enlighten us." Knives said, gazing at Nicholas.

"I was defending a young lady from a group of outlaws whose leader was impersonating Vash the Stampede." Vash said, airily and took a mouthful of stew. "I got shot for my efforts too." He grouched with his mouth full.

The rest of the evening was spent with Vash telling stories. He even told ones with his brother in them, which made Knives loudly protest that the years were clearly clouding his memory and told them as he knew them. Douglas and Nicholas kept glancing at each other. Meryl grinned; the best lie of the week betting pool was going to go to Knives if he continued to run his mouth.

* * *

 _Outskirts of December City_

Douglas sat with his feet up on the tall stool beside him as he slouched at the bar.

"What's got you looking so morose?" Will, the short grey haired barkeeper asked as he placed a large glass of his finest beer beside the young man. He placed the same for himself and seated himself on the stool at the far side of the bar.

It was half an hour past closing and Douglas had sat there watching him lock up, sweep then tidy the bar. Douglas turned the coaster with his finger, the beer was rather good. Will's Bar, the coaster declared, then advertised a cheaper brand of beer than he was currently drinking.

"December." Douglas sighed.

There was a thunder of feet upstairs.

"Zed! Get back in the bath!" Meryl shrieked. "Vash, he's your son! I can't catch him if he goes all fast!"

There was more thumping then a delighted yell and laughter as Vash did the required catching.

Douglas and Will glanced at each other and studied their beer.

"Er, my niece said that you and your sister were staying with them." Will said. "Are they doing well?"

Douglas gave a snort of laughter.

"He's Vash the Stampede and she's Meryl Stryfe, you must have seen the TV show! They're crazy all on their own, together…" He trailed off. "Together they're kind of nice." He sighed.

"He's treating her well then?" Will asked, bluntly.

"Yeah." Douglas said rather wistfully. "It's kind of like what Mum and Dad used to be like."

Will found a bowl and then dug out a packet of peanuts which he emptied into it. They sat nibbling.

"What happened to your folks? Are you kin of his? You look, you know…" Will trailed off.

"Oh, yeah, Jasmine and I are plants." Douglas said easily. "But we're not kin of his, no, Knives has his own kids."

"Millions Knives." Will murmured. "Biggest bastard on the planet and I have to be related by marriage." He rolled his eyes. "So your parents must have been Terrans then, as far as I know, Vash and Knives are the only No Man's Land plants."

"Er, kind of. Mum was a Terran and Dad's from this world. He's an old friend of Vash's and helped him in the last war…"

"Hang on a second." Will said, sitting up straight. "I met this guy a few years back, before my niece caught that outlaw. He had grey hair and strange lightning tattoos across his face. Your sister…"

"Yeah, that's our Dad. He's Livio. He's also the reason I hate December. It means I have to visit the December Academy he runs." Douglas scowled and took a long sip at his beer.

Will leaned back, reassessing Douglas with a long stare.

"He's a dangerous man to cross." Will said quietly. "Some slaver syndicate tried for that orphanage outside December. He tracked them down, captured the entire syndicate, and anyone who tried to defend them. He's had them working as chain gangs rebuilding that citadel of his." Will picked up a peanut. "I'll say this for your father. It's been a lot quieter around here since he's openly declared himself the general of a private army."

Douglas laughed mirthlessly; the old man did not guess the half of it. But how could one explain the Eye of Michael to one who was not.

"What does your Mum think of you wandering around with Vash the Stampede?"

The question caught him off guard and Douglas flinched slightly. He put his beer down and took a handful of peanuts. He sat tossing them and catching them with his tongue.

"Ah. Sorry." Will said and topped up his beer.

Douglas took a slow drink.

"She died." He said barely audibly. "Died trying to free Jasmine and I from some Terrans. Only before she died, she gave us into Vash's keeping. So when things get rough with Dad, he sends us back to Vash for a few months." He picked at the peanuts again. "Vash is nice. He lets us be plants, but also lets us be people. Like, do our own thing. Dad is all about training for the future, study, exercise, practice, memorise, ugh it gets so tedious. Jasmine likes it better than I, and Dad takes her sass better. Me, he just glares, he tried the belt once when I punched him, but after I sliced it to shreds…. Well that was the first time he sent us off to Vash."

"What can't you tell him?"

"Vash?" Douglas said in surprise. There was not much he could keep from Vash; he had an uncomfortable knack of picking up stuff.

"No, your father."

Douglas groaned.

"Everything! I want to work with weapon design, but do you think he gives me a moment to concentrate on it? No, training this, study that… Like they will let a half Terran, half plant into May City University. I could try for Lost July, but the half Terran, half Plant thing is just the same trouble for a different reason there. Only I don't want to go to damn university, that's Jasmine's thing. I want to join Zachery Thompson in weapons manufacture. Only that's like going over to the dark side for Dad. So I can't even bring it up without him exploding."

"Are you any good?" Will asked.

"Yes." Douglas put his own gun on the counter. "I designed and made this. It's for plants, but humans can also use it. Only, a plant would be able to use it to enhance their powers. I got the idea of Vash's gun, Knives has a real knack for plant integrated design."

Will turned the gun over in his hands feeling the weight of the weapon. He put it down.

"Hmm. Not much call for plant related weapons on this world. How many of there are you? Five?"

"Probably twenty." Douglas shrugged.

Will stared at him.

"Er, are all of you capable of, well, you know, that moon…"

Douglas shrugged.

"We could, but using so much power isn't wise."

"And you want to help them?"

"Help them not have to resort to that." Douglas explained earnestly. "If they had another way of fighting, using weapons, for instance, they wouldn't go for all out destruction. They could channel their power another way, cause less damage."

Will gazed thoughtfully at him, as Douglas suddenly became aware that someone was watching them. He glanced up to see Vash sitting at the far end of the bar. How long had he been there? He was smiling happily with tears in his eyes.

"Vash, you're not telling my Dad any of that!" Douglas leaped up and grabbed Vash's arm.

Vash smiled at the frantic young man.

"I won't. But you should!"

"I'd be working for Knives!" Douglas declared. "Dad will kill me. Then he'd try kill Knives, and then where would Jasmine be, all alone in the world?"

"That's rather dramatic, young man." Will said calmly. "Come here, let's finish our beers."

"I won't say anything." Vash promised as Douglas glared mulishly at him. Will poured a third beer and they sat drinking.

"So how's married life treating you, eh?" Will grinned at Vash.

Vash felt his ears go red and wondered how to get the conversation back onto weapons manufacture.


	61. Chapter 61: Epilogue 3

_**CH 61: Epilogue 3**_

 _December Academy_

The December Academy was several iles outside the city. Nicholas wondered why his family in particular liked to walk. He enjoyed it himself but sometimes it would be nice if the walking was not so far. It did not help seeing sandworms in the distance. Cousin Alexander was certainly not walking. He wandered over to Douglas who was usually a good companion for a moan. However, Douglas looked so disgruntled that Nicholas stared at him fascinated. It was one thing wanting company while miserable but it was a whole 'nother thing seeing someone looking more miserable than he felt. Nicholas sidled over to Jasmine.  
"What's got Doug?"  
Jasmine glanced over and shook her head.  
"Leave him alone Nick."  
Nicholas watched the sandworms. That one in the front that was doing slow undulations down a sand dune was definitely cousin Alexander.  
"Jasmine, I know why he's so annoyed. Just look at smarmy cousin Alexander riding that worm. You know, I don't think he ever walked three whole miles in his life."  
Jasmine smiled.  
"Some folks don't know what they're missing."  
"I could do with missing it!" Nicholas declared.

He was very relieved when they finally arrived at the gates. Tall imposing wrought iron monstrosities with enough spikes to discourage anyone from forcing entry. There were several people waiting for them. They all wore everyday clothes, but none looked normal. Most were obviously augmented in some way or another. Nicholas searched for Livio, but did not see the tall grey haired man anywhere. He saw Douglas breathe a sigh of relief.  
"Is my father away?" He asked too hopefully to be seeking a negative answer.  
"No, he says the family is to meet him in his suites. That includes Master Vash, sir."

Douglas sulked all the way up the stairs. Nicholas trailed him, fascinated. Livio's suites were a few rather Spartan rooms in the central keep. Douglas and Jasmine had rooms there too. Nicholas loved Douglas' lair. The room was just so interesting. He had a whole workbench complete with lathe and grindstone. The various things he had built were scattered across the room. Mostly weapons prototypes -which was why Livio allowed him to keep his workshop in the family suite rather than in the industrial workshops in the outer citadel.  
"What ya workin'on?" Nicholas asked.  
"Nothing." Douglas said grumpily. "Go away."  
Nicholas took one last longing look at the room and left. It must be nice to have a place that was wholly yours. A place where you could leave stuff and it would be there when you got back.

He went to find his mother. There were some things his father would never understand. Meryl was in the guest room Livio had given them, busy unpacking.  
"Where's Dad?"  
"Talking with Livio. He'll be back soon."  
"Um. Mum. Why don't we have a proper house like everyone else?"  
Meryl left her unpacking and sat on the bed. Nicholas sighed and sprawled face down across the covers behind her.  
"We're never going to have one. Dad likes his walking too much." He said into the blankets.  
He felt her ruffle his hair.  
"You're growing up my Nicholas."  
"Not like I have any choice." He grumbled.  
"You have it tough." Meryl said.  
Nicholas turned his head to look at her. There was no sarcasm in her voice, and she held PhDs in sarcasm.  
"You have seen the lives of others and want it for yourself. But think what would you have to sacrifice to get it?"  
"My family." He said listlessly. She won this round. At least his Dad hadn't been around. That would have been a guilt trip with him looking all hurt.  
"Can't we just stay in one place for half a year?"  
"Won't that make moving on even harder?" Meryl pointed out.  
"Maybe. But I could have my own room for projects and stuff."  
"What would you have in it?"  
"I dunno. Stuff."  
"Ah. You're wanting a place of your own."  
"Yeah."  
He ducked his head away as his mother tried ruffling his hair again.  
"Nick. I'll talk to your father."  
"He won't understand whyd'ya think I'm asking you."  
She gazed at him with a slight smile. "I think you're in for a surprise."  
"Dad never had a home in his whole life. I know. Even the orb plants tell stories about him wandering. So it's not just humans."  
"Nick. Ask your father and see what he says."

Nicholas found Vash on the battlement overlooking the plain. Somewhere in the distance beyond the horizon was the orphanage. Nicholas pushed that thought away.  
"Dad."  
His father reached out an arm and Nicholas sidled up for a hug.  
"When can we stay in our own house?"

Vash gazed down at him with a smile.

"We don't have a house."

"Yeah but we could have one." Nick pressed. "One where we can stay a whole year, and when we leave, we don't have to take our stuff, our stuff can just wait until we get back, 'cause it's our house."

Vash leaned on his elbows and peered out at the sandworms on the desert below.

"So you don't want to live there, but you want a place to call home."

"Um. No, I do want to live there, but I also want to go with you and you will never stay there, so I can't." He frowned. "I don't know! Why does our family have to be so weird?"

Vash laughed.

"There are many who move around. It's not just us. But I know what you mean. I think it's time we returned to Seeds."

"Seeds?" Nicholas said blankly.

Vash smiled.

"It's my home." He said happily.

"But you said you have no house!"

"I don't, but that place, it's my home. Yours too if you want."

Nicholas stared at him baffled.

"I told Mum that you wouldn't get it!" Nicholas exclaimed, exasperated and marched off in a huff.

He was about to enter his room he shared with Zed, when he saw Douglas with a haversack over his shoulder sneaking down the passage. He turned and followed. The young plant made it down to the first floor before he noticed him.

"Nick! Get lost!" He exclaimed.

"Nope. Going with you." Nicholas told him stubbornly.

"C'mon, not this time!" Douglas pleaded.

"Why?" Nicholas asked stubbornly.

"'cause! Now get lost." Douglas said crossly.

"Are you sneaking out to see Uncle Knives?" Nicholas asked. "'cause that's where I'm going. Cousin Alexander has been making his worm do figures of eight in the sand for the past half an hour. He's as bored as we are."

"I'm not going to challenge anyone to a shooting match!" Douglas snapped crossly. "I wanted to test weapons!"

"Really!" Nicholas said awed. "Can we watch?"

"No!" Douglas exclaimed. "They are plant weapons, and very dangerous."

"Wha- I'm a plant…"

"Yeah, precisely why you're not coming along! You'd want to try everything and they're all prototypes. Your dad will kill me if anything happens to you."

"Not to mention what your own father will do."

They both jumped as Livio stepped out into the passage. Douglas shot Nicholas a look of fury. He flinched; he had not meant to get him caught.

"What prototypes are these, Douglas?" Livio asked curiously. "You never mentioned them."

Douglas's expression went sullen and he did not meet Livio's eye.

"Just some of my tinkering." He muttered.

"You did not want to show me?" Livio asked.

Douglas hunched his shoulders sullenly and did not see Livio smile.

"You remind me so much of your mother." He said suddenly. "She was always adapting her weapons. She had a rocket launcher that she tested on a Heaven's Gate plant, and spent the rest of the time strategising how to make it more powerful."

Douglas straightened and stared at his father.

"Mum shot Vash?" He breathed incredulously.

"Yeah." Livio laughed. "Woke him up, let him help a few hundred people."

Douglas blinked a few times.

"So, want to take your weapons out to the test range?"

Douglas eyed his father, astonished.

"But I thought you hated it when Jasmine and I fought."

"I don't like it, but I like it less when you feel you have to sneak around my back to do things."

Douglas took on a stubborn look.

"Zachery Thompson says my weapons would be an asset to the Eye of Michael."

Livio burst out laughing.

"They sure will be! Their enhanced warriors will be able to blow themselves into more spectacular bits."

"I'm serious, Dad." Douglas exclaimed, hurt.

"So am I!" Livio replied. "I was one of those warriors not so long ago. C'mon, let me test them out. ZT has some very demanding standards and he answers to Millions Knives, who only ever takes the best."

"I already got Master Knives to test them out. He says they have promise."

Nicholas felt the change of atmosphere and flinched. Livio had gone scarily still and was staring at Douglas like a hawk watching a mouse. Unable to breath with the tension, Nicholas sidled off and legged it back upstairs. He found his Dad leaning in the doorway talking to his Mum.

"Dad! Dad, you gotta come now, Livio is going to kill Douglas!"

He dragged his father down the passage by his sleeve.

"Where are they Nicholas?" Vash asked.

"First floor by the stair landing."

He flew after his father as Vash ran. He came to a halt a floor above and walked down the stairs with his hands in his pockets. Nicholas peered nervously down from the stairs.

The two men were still there.

"You think you can work for Knives?" Livio yelled at Douglas. "You know nothing of how he treats his servants! Don't for a second think your worst memory is anything on what he'll put you through!"

"At least he acknowledges good work, unlike you!"

"He always has." Vash said casually. "He likes perfection. He used to beat me up and mock me if I performed below his standards."

Livio and Douglas both straightened a little sheepishly. Vash grinned at them.

"Your father knows my brother," Vash continued. "He wants you to avoid the pain he knows. I don't know what would be best. The way you're acting, I'd send you off to ZT for lessons in manners."

"See, Dad!" Douglas exclaimed. "Even Vash thinks it a good idea!"

"ZT's old school Eye of Micheal." Vash said in a suddenly bland voice. "Enjoy getting up with the dawn and studying and practicing until you can no longer stand up."

"How is that different to what Dad does?" Douglas protested.

Vash glanced at Livio then back at Douglas.

"The difference?" They all turned as Meryl walked down the stairs to stand beside Vash. "Your father loves you Douglas. That makes all the difference in the world."

Livio and Douglas avoided each other's eye. Meryl moved across to Livio.

"Milly says hi." She smiled up at him and held out a small hip flask.

Livio took it then almost dropped it.

"This was Wolfwood's."

"Yeah, she thought you'd might want to remember your friend." She then took a ribbon out of her pocket and handed it to Douglas. He grabbed it and hid it so fast it was almost as if it had not been there. Nicholas leaned further over the railing. That had been Melissa's ribbon.

"Why don't you show your father your weapons first? He'd be a better person to asses them than ZT or Knives. For all those two talk, they have not been in nearly as many battles as they lead you to believe. And if you want any plant input, Vash can be worked on to give his opinion."

"W-worked on?" Vash protested.

Meryl leaned over to Douglas and spoke in a stage whisper.

"He likes flattery."

"H-hey!" Vash exclaimed as Meryl turned and walked back to him, once she was a few steps beyond him, she turned and leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. Vash blushed.

"Play nicely." She said as she walked back up the stairs. "Nicholas, with me."

Nicholas turned very reluctantly and slowly dragged one foot up after the other.

There was a round of awkward silence below.

"Who gave you the ribbon?" Livio asked.

"Aunt Meryl." Douglas said stubbornly, though his ears went red. "Do you really want to see what I've made?" He asked hastily, to change the subject.

"Why not?" Livio hefted the hip flask with some surprise. He twisted the cap off and sniffed and a slow smile covered his face. "Wow. Vash, is Abe still trying to brew Earth style whiskey?"

"Yes." Vash laughed. "The last batch was rather potent."

"So it seems."

"It made me drunk." Douglas warned him. "That takes some doing."

"Nick!"

Nicholas jumped and scampered up the stairs to where his mother was waiting.

"Mum, that was Melissa's ribbon…."

Meryl put her finger across her lips and winked.

"Eew." Nicholas declared as they ascended. "Girls are weird. Why did she give him a ribbon? What use is that?"

"You'll understand one day."

"Yuk! I don't want to!" Nicholas declared with a shudder.

* * *

 _December Orphanage_

Meryl handed around hugs as the orphans ran out to meet them. They piled on Vash who happily went down under a scrum of youngsters, including Zed who was laughing at the game. Nicholas sulked. He had sidled over to Douglas and tried to convince him to walk the twenty iles back to the December Academy.

"Hah!" Doug ruffled Nicholas' hair. "I want to be lazy for a few more days. You know what my Dad's like. Crack of dawn running and push-ups and the like, then and after breakfast study, then more exercise then aaahhh, no. I'm gonna enjoy the holiday."

Nicholas gaped at him.

"I'd rather do boring exercise than be here!" He complained.

Douglas eyed him as they walked through the orphanage yard.

"Your Dad lets you off easy. You have no idea what it's like with just my Dad." He said as he shook his head.

A few of the older children hung around the buildings and Nicholas skirted behind Douglas as they approached.

"I so do have an idea." He grouched to himself.

"Aw, look, he's not only a zombie, he's talking to himself."

Nicholas whipped around and glared at the older orphans. To his surprise, they were his height, last time they had been taller. They stared at him as much as he stared at them.

"Crazy Nick!" One jeered.

Nicholas checked where his parents were and marched across to the irritating boy.

"Do you know anything of Nicholas D. Wolfwood?"

There were sniggers.

"Stupid!"

"Yeah, he's a dead man walking!"

Nicholas lost his temper and punched the most annoying boy of the lot. The others all piled into the fight.

"Hey! Leave off my cousin!"

Nicholas was astonished when Alexander waded in. He wanted to thump him really hard for interfering with his fight, but not in front of his attackers.

"That is most unseemly." A cold voice froze them all and Nicholas found Alexander trying to sidle behind him. The scruffy group of orphan boys all gaped up at Knives with awed terror.

"An explanation." Knives went on in the same icy voice.

Nicholas found it tremendously unfair when everyone looked at him.

"Nicholas Saverem." Knives said grimly. "Do enlighten us."

Nicholas opened his mouth to protest that was not his name, but one did not do that to Uncle Knives, he had learned that early on. He then noticed he had an audience of not only his annoying girl cousins, but his aunt, his mother, Melanie the house mother as well as most of the orphans. He glanced behind him and found his father standing against the wall with a slight smile on his face. He suddenly felt better; his Dad had something up his sleeve.

"The stupid orphans here always tease me about my name 'cause it's the same name on that grave there." He pointed.

"As I recall that grave belongs to an assassin of the Eye of Michael. Do you have such aspirations? Your father would disapprove most strongly."

An assassin? Nicholas blinked and glanced questioningly at his father, he really had edited the story this time! By the unimpressed stare Vash was giving Knives, this was true.

"Did you know him?" Nicholas asked, fascinated.

"Yes." Knives said with a frown. "He was one of my servants. I sent him to babysit your father who was dawdling with insignificant humans. Understand this, Nicholas, you are a plant. Behave like one, and if these flea bitten maggots tease you again, let them have a taste of your power." Knives turned his gaze on the children. Nicholas stumbled back as Vash was suddenly there, shielding the children, eye to eye with Knives. He flapped his hand at the kids to get them to move. Only no one was moving from so fascinating a confrontation.

(Knives.) Vash said calmly, but the fury took Nicholas' breath away.

Knives blinked and cocked his head slightly. Then he smiled slowly and began to laugh.

"Ever the saviour of the weak and undeserving. Is there any wine in this establishment, or do I need to return to my tent?"

"Perhaps it would be best if you return to your tent."

Knives whipped round to face a man with black hair and blue eyes leaning against the kitchen door. Mutare was slightly gaunt, but that was all that showed of his illness.

"B-but…" Vash looked between Knives, the grave and then Mutare.

"Unless, someone can speak in your favour." Mutare gave Vash an unimpressed look.

"I-I just wanted to show him around." Vash said.

"You're his babysitter while he's here, then." Mutare said shortly. "Boys, inside, I want a word with you. Nicholas Saverem, it that your name? You too. Everyone else scat before I add you to the extra chores roster."

"My name's not Saverem!" Nicholas muttered.

(It is.) Vash called after him.

Nicholas froze. He spun around and stalked over to his father, furious.

"What?" He screamed. "What else don't we know that everyone else on this whole damned world knows?"

"That's enough." Vash said sharply, in a tone too reminiscent of Knives for there to be any doubt they were brothers. Nicholas was struck dumb. It was even eerier when he shook his head in a slightly distressed manner and gestured gently. "Go with Mutare and hear what he has to say. Then I want you out here with me."

Nicholas scowled at him then scuffed his way across to Mutare, very aware that everyone was staring at him.

"Wha'cha waitin' for? You's gonna be lectured too, idiots!"

Nicholas slouched at the door of the room as the orphans sidled in and huddled in a group by the kitchen table. Mutare closed the door and leaned against it. Nicholas hastily edged his way a yarz along the wall out of his reach.

"None of you under the age of twelve, pitiful." Mutare growled at the orphans. "You were acting like two year olds, baiting each other. You were very stupid in your choice of target, you know."

He glanced at Nicholas.

"Have you any idea who he is?"

"Vash the Stampede's son." Someone said from the group.

"Indeed. Have you speculated he was going easy on you? Playing with you as you do a puppy, letting you tumble and bite because that is what puppies do? He can stun you with a thought, paralyze you with a gesture and kill you on a whim. His uncle would have, had _Vash the Stampede_ not been here today. Now. Give me your reasons, and I can read lies, remember."

They scowled at Nicholas. Nicholas was simply astonished to hear the threat Mutare laid out. Now that he thought about it, he could do those things. But who would even dream of it? He felt his stomach fill with leaden dread as he realised Uncle Knives had done just what Mutare had described.

"I've got a stupid name that matches the name on the grave out there." He said as the silence dragged out and the boys avoided each other's eyes. They stared at him.

"You act weird, like a grownup." One of the boys said.

"And you have a strange accent."

"You have a mum and dad and you don't care."

"Sheesh!" Nicholas interrupted. "Just _try_ having my mum and dad for a second!"

"Nicholas!" Mutare said firmly. "See the emotions behind what he said."

Nicholas gaped at him, bewildered, then gingerly examined the boy who glanced twitchily between Mutare and Nicholas. Nicholas gasped and had to swallow hard before he could speak.

"He's jealous and heartbroken."

"See!" The boy pointed out. "What kid talks like that?"

"Nicholas is a plant. I've told you that we're different from humans, yet somehow you don't believe me. You're lucky to know him. He's a good fighter and could teach a few of you to throw punches. But we won't be doing any brawling practice here. What we are going to have here, are some apologies. It is no easy thing to be different. You know this; the other kids in school have parents, while you do not. Now," Mutare gazed at them, "we are going to do this. Nicholas, tell me, which of them are plotting revenge?"

Nicholas stared at Mutare, incredulously. He glanced at the group of boys; all he could sense was flat panic.

"None of them."

"Good." Mutare gazed at the boys. "First lesson in survival, young humans, don't pick on a plant. You are dismissed; if you want to give apologies I would hear them now."

The boys hesitated, Nicholas was amazed. He would have run.

"We didn't know you was a plant. Sorry."

"We did know, but we didn't know you could do the weird mind things like Mutare. Um, sorry."

"Yer uncle is really scary, ya know. I'm sorry I called you a Zombie."

"Uh, sorry."

"Sorry."

"S'ry."

"Um, sorry I punched you. Um, is your dad like the real Vash the Stampede, like with the red coat and that wicked arm gun?"

Nicholas rolled his eyes.

"I know as much as you do about him. He likes to pretend he's not famous and all. I only know 'cause my cousin and I have been doing research."

He found he had an avid audience. Mutare opened the door.

"Nicholas, your father wants you outside. Off you go."

He dragged his feet out of the door to a chorus of disappointed whines from the boys.

"What are you all still doing here; do you want chores on top of a lecture?"

The speed at which the room cleared was remarkable.

.

Nicholas scuffed his way across to where his father and Uncle Knives were staring at the grave. There was an odd tension between them, and they stood one on each side of the grave. Nicholas tested their emotions, and jumped as Knives shut down his emotions and all he hit was a cold blankness, while his father pushed him away easily with a touch of mirth.

"What did Mutare show you?" Vash asked as Nicholas wrinkled his nose at him.

"Nothing, he just had me sense the emotions of the boys while he scared them silly with talk about plants."

"Hmm." Vash said and put his hand on his son's shoulder as he came to stand beside him. "It's not really considered polite among plants to do that. It also scares those humans sensitive enough to sense it."

"It's potentially a useful skill." Knives interjected. "But I don't care to know you're frustrated with your father and rather proud that Mutare defended you to a miserable gaggle of humans."

Nicholas felt his face flush and stared down at the grave.

"He had the skill." Knives said quietly, nodding down at Wolfwood's grave. "Able to sense danger so as to gauge the threat and react accordingly. It made him an excellent assassin. He took out many of my best men, before he turned to your father's way of thinking."

"Uncle Knives." Nicholas asked with more curiosity than sense. "Can you really kill on a whim?"

Knives gazed at him.

"Did you ever punch your sister?"

"Of course, she's such a pain!" He paused as his father's hand tightened on his shoulder. "Only I got into huge trouble as you're not to hit girls." He amended.

He glanced up and fell silent as he noticed how emptily Knives was smiling at him. Nicholas felt a little sick then. Was it that easy? Like hitting someone? He was glad of his father's hand on his shoulder. Uncle Knives wasn't just scary, he was completely crazy. Nicholas swallowed down his panic as he cast about for an escape, then noticed Alexander climbing the rocks that surrounded the orphanage. He and his sisters had ropes and everything.

"Knives!"

He was brought back to the present as his father snapped at his uncle.

"Your boy is asking questions. Questions you should be asking, little brother. Is that not why you brought us here? To look at the world and ponder the insignificance of life?"

What nonsense they were talking? Ah. How to get out of this and go to where Alexander was?

"No." Nicholas said. "We came here so that Dad could have a drink with his dead friend. You can ponder life if you like. Dad, can I go now?"

They both stared at him, but Vash released his shoulder. Nicholas ran off, but he could not resist a brief parting dart at Knives's mind shield.

"Hah!" He laughed, "you're as frustrated as I am!"

He rapidly increased his speed, the look his uncle shot him bordered on a murderous whim.

"He's your miserable son."

Vash grinned at Knives.

"What's this drinking you do?" Knives asked as the silence drew out.

"It was a thing we did before he died. You'll remember, you tried to kill me just after."

Knives glanced around then upwards.

Vash sat down on the grave and put his glasses on, then fished out a shot glass and a bottle of whiskey. He had been saving this particular bottle for this occasion.

"Firewater? Vash, is this all you drink?" Knives wrinkled his nose as Vash handed up a shot of Bride's whiskey.

"Naw, but this is what we drink here." He filled the cap with his own shot. "To my best friend, Nicholas D. Wolfwood." He held up his tot and Knives stared disapprovingly at him.

"What, you want me to say something?"

Annoyingly, Vash continued to grin at him.

"Er, to Nicholas D. Wolfwood, you did your job too well, and my brother ended up babysitting you. I should have known. He gets to everyone in the end." He took a deep breath and threw back the tot of whiskey. They drank in silence.

Knives seated himself on the grave and leaned back against the cross punisher that was the headstone.

"Vash?"

Vash turned from pouring himself another tot.

"Why 'Love and Peace'?" Knives scowled. "That was never one of Rem's phrases you liked to parrot."

"That's easy," Vash grinned, "if everyone showed love to each other there would be peace!"

Knives glared at him.

"Please don't pretend to be that shallow."

"Knives." Vash met his gaze. "Remember what Rem used to say about our ticket to the future being blank?"

"Yes." Knives grated.

"Humans didn't get that too well, and plants not at all. I found it helpful to paint a picture of what could be. To let them dream of a future that was different to what they knew. It worked really well!"

Knives gave him a long stare.

"Vash, why do you bother?" He huffed, irritated.

"For love." Vash laughed. "To see it reawaken in a heart long since dead."

Knives gazed at him incredulously.

"Why are you _my_ brother?"

"You're asking me?" Vash exclaimed. "We were friends once, but we grew apart."

"No. I walked away." Knives said.

Vash leaned back and refilled his brothers tot glass as Knives kept talking.

"And you came to find me again, and again, and again. Even after I did everything to drive you away, even when I imprisoned you. Why did you bother? I know I gave you worse scars than those on your body."

"Because you are my brother." Vash said and toasted his bottle cap to that.

"You're such an idiot." Knives said frustrated.

Vash took a slow sip of the whiskey as Knives continued.

"I have to go back to the deep desert soon, or the hive mind will relocate itself around me."

Vash nodded.

"I, I just wanted to say, thank you for saving me."

Vash felt a strange calm as a moment of vulnerability that passed between them.

"I, er, wanted you to know why we can't stay." Knives said hastily and turned away as he fidgeted with his tot glass. "Um. I found Tessla's grave. I planted an apple grove there."

Vash stared at Knives, but his brother wouldn't look at him. He put his hand over his eyes and Vash swung his legs across the grave and scooted to sit beside him. Knives turned away.

"Vash." He said in a haunted voice. "I, I tried to do to you in spirit what they physically did to her. Only, I was lucky that you were stronger than me. Vash, there can be no apology great enough. Please know that I leave humans alone for your sake."

Vash reached out with his prosthetic hand and put it on Knives' shoulder. He flinched.

"I am not trustworthy, Vash. It is a good thing the hive mind occupies most of my conscious thought. I don't think I could comprehend emotion as burned out as I was. I am both your brother and an alien entity you know as the sandworm hive mind. This sentiment I share because it disturbs this host so deeply it drives him to seek you out, though he cannot fathom why. He overrides my will in this regard, so I must allow this. He was right in rejecting us before, as he would have consumed us, but now, it is us who maintain his body that would have degraded years ago. Thank you for not driving us off, and for allowing both of us to relay our sentiments."

Vash put his flesh and blood hand on Knives's forehead. For a moment he saw his brother gaze out of his own eyes, utterly free of the Sandworm's influence.

"Vash," he whispered, "let me be. My path cannot be your path, for all you are my twin. But thank you for this clarity, I remember what I wanted to say. My brother, I'm sorry." He blinked slowly, as though deeply tired. "You need to release me now, or I shall die, and you will have the Sandworms with the collective knowledge of my mind to turn on humans with impunity."

Vash lowered his hand and Knives blinked rapidly and shied slightly away from him.

"You are even more powerful than he is."

Vash gazed at the form of his brother that was not wholly his brother, but perhaps a better part of him.

"Take care of him." Vash instructed. "I will be watching."

Knives smiled.

"We know."

.

Nicholas trailed after Vash, watching the sandworms retreat in the distance. He sighed and walked up to lean against his father. He missed cousin Alexander already.

"Will we ever see them again?"

Vash put his arm around his son.

"Of course we will. They're family."

"Scary family." Nicholas said in a quiet voice, thinking how he would not like to meet Uncle Knives alone.

"Yep. We'll see them, not often, but sometimes that is for the best."

"Dad, I'm glad you're my Dad."

Vash ruffled his hair making Nicholas duck out from under his arm.

"I'm glad you're my son."

 **The End**

(Absolutely and unequivocally for this story.)

Thank you for reading.


End file.
